Tuesday, March 17, 2009

A Shatterproof Wooden Baseball Bat?

The resiliency of popular maple bats was a hot topic in the major leagues last year as several people were grievously injured by shattered pieces of the nontraditional wood. In an article on the recovery of a Pittsburgh Pirates coach who was injured by a broken bat, an ESPN article linked to the interesting story of a guy in New Jersey who quit his consulting job to start a company that makes "shatterproof" bats out of wedges of wood using glue and pressure. The bats won't be appearing in MLB games anytime soon but as somebody who always liked the feel of wood a bit better than that of an aluminum bat, I was really intrigued by the idea.