Missouri avoids bat debate

~ The state's high school association has not discussed metal bat ban.

Nick Harris keeps his eyes trained on the batter's hands as he creeps in from third base.

If Harris doesn't see the hands slide up the bat, he scurries back toward the base.

The reason?

He's worried about taking a blast off a metal bat to the head.

Metal bats first started being used in the 1970s. (Kit Doyle ~ kdoyle@semissourian.com)

"It's happened where I didn't pick it up," said Harris, Southeast Missouri State's third baseman. "It was just there and by me so fast I didn't know. If it had hit right at me, if it hit me in the head, I'm dead probably.

"I've actually had a couple one-hoppers that have hit me off the head. It's serious."

Various governing bodies are trying to protect players like Harris and other baseball players by banning metal bats. The problem is that bat manufacturers and some scientists argue that metal bats don't pose a greater danger than their wood counterparts. They point out there is a lack of scientific evidence that proves metal bats are more dangerous than wood bats.

The issue gained national attention last month when the New York City Council voted to ban the use of metal bats in New York City high school games. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said he'll veto the ban, but the City Council will try to override the veto.

"The bill will prevent injuries among high school athletes and make the game of baseball safer," City Council Speaker Christine Quinn said in a statement. "After seeing ample evidence that non-wood bats can significantly increase the risk for young athletes, the city council decided to take action and reduce this unnecessary danger. We expect the full council to consider a veto override vote later this month."

Jim Darby, the vice president for promotions at Easton Sports, has a problem with James Oddo, the councilman who introduced the bill, and the New York City Council's stance. Darby said the evidence doesn't support the council's view.

"I've been in New York and I've looked at what he [Oddo] told the council," Darby said. "He has no data to support it. None. His comment is, 'Oh well, everyone can see the ball comes off faster.' What kind of comment is that?"

New York City isn't the only place where a ban has been debated. The North Dakota High School Activities Association already outlawed metal bats in high school play. The ban took effect this season. Dave Carlsrud, an assistant executive secretary at the association, said safety concerns were the driving force behind the ban.

"We were having close calls that they [coaches] had identified with no serious injury," Carlsrud said. "But with the velocity that was involved, there could have been."

A similar ban hasn't been proposed in Missouri. George Blase, an assistant executive director at the Missouri State High School Activities Association, said he hasn't received any calls from parents seeking a ban on metal bats.

"We're not going to be out in front of this just because there isn't a lot of evidence nationwide that this would make any difference," Blase said. "Any sport is dangerous. If you have a wood bat, look at all the major league games that are played and people get hit, but very rarely do they have a very serious injury."

Local youth leagues are taking a similar approach to the MSHSAA. Phyllis Crump, president of the SEMO South Junior Babe Ruth League, said the issue has never come up. Percy Huston, director of the Cape Youth Baseball League, said the board of directors hasn't discussed a ban.

"I'm aware of the national discussion, but it really isn't something that's come up," Huston said. "Obviously, if there was some national push or a big outcry for safety reasons, we would certainly consider it, but that hasn't been the case."

The rise of aluminum

Aluminum bats first started appearing during the 1970s. The bats became more effective as the technology improved and players fell in love with them.

"When you hit it in the middle of the bat with the wood, it's just about the same," Harris said. "But if you hit it anywhere else but the barrel, it's totally different. You can feel it in the hands and in how far the ball goes. It's everything."

Mike Sigler, the baseball coach at Maryville University in St. Louis and a former high school coach, grew up with a wood bat in his hands but said aluminum is the way to go.

"I'm 60 years old and honestly and truly I never used an aluminum bat in my life," Sigler said. "I've got to be honest, I love the feel of an aluminum bat, I really do. I know there are those purists out there who say they love the feel of a wooden bat. Nah."

The problem is aluminum bats started giving hitters too much of an advantage. The NCAA took action in 1998 when it set limits on bat performance. The Division I championship game earlier that year, a 21-14 victory by USC, helped draw attention to the issue. Over the last 10 years, the NCAA has tried to rein in metal bats and more closely tie their performance to wood bats. The National Federation of State High School Associations has followed suit with the NCAA.

Today, the NCAA relies on Jim Sherwood, the director of the Baseball Research Center at the University of Massachusetts-Lowell, to certify all bats used in collegiate play. Sherwood said the ball exit speed ratio, or BESR, is the critical measure used to eliminate the disparity between balls hit off wood and aluminum. The BESR lets researchers determine the speed that a ball comes off a bat.

"There was a wider disparity between wood and aluminum before the NCAA implemented this BESR standard," Sherwood said. "But right now, the performance of those aluminum bats is really tied to the performance of a wood bat of the same length. It's not a zero gap, by no means, there really is a slight 2, 3, 5 mph difference, but it's not like one is safe and the ball is barely coming off and the other is a rocket launcher."

Another measure the NCAA implemented was a tighter weight-to-length ratio. The maximum ratio is a minus-3 for NCAA bats, which means the difference between the weight of the bat, in ounces, and length of the bat, in inches, cannot be greater than three. So a 32-inch bat cannot weigh less than 29 ounces.

Each change has decreased the difference between wood and metal bats in laboratory testing.

"In laboratory testing, an aluminum bat can hit no better than 1 mph greater than the equivalent length wood bat," Sherwood said. "This is the best wood bat."

Southeast Missouri State pitcher/outfielder Asif Shah has a hard time believing the difference is so small. He's smashed balls with a metal bat in his hands and tried to get out players swinging metal. But he admitted there may be little difference when the ball is hit on the sweet spot.

"Maybe if you barrel it up completely with both aluminum and wood, you might come up with a smaller difference," Shah said. "But as far as overall, there's a big difference."

Terry Bahill, an engineering professor at the University of Arizona, understands Shah's take, and has an explanation for it.

"All of those measures are flawed because what you really want to do is you really want a human swinging the bat and a human swings differently than a robot," Bahill said. "But none of the tests nowadays are using humans to swing them, so they are all approximations to what they are trying to do."

Sherwood understands there's likely a difference between a bat's performance in the laboratory and its performance in the field. But he doesn't think the difference between the two is as great as some believe.

"Out in the field, the player is maybe going to be able to swing it 3 or 4 mph faster," Sherwood said. "So I would say out in the field, the difference between wood and aluminum, theoretically, because I haven't measured the difference out in the field, is probably 2 to 5 mph, 5 mph being the maximum difference."

There is another explanation for Shah's experience. Joseph Crisco, the director of the Bioengineering Laboratory at Brown University, teamed with colleagues to research if metal bats outperformed wood bats. He found that metal bats were outperforming wood bats, but he says that doesn't make a bat more dangerous. He also noted that all the bats he tested were made before the current NCAA regulations.

"If you looked at all the hits combined and said, OK, how many hits were about, say, 75 mph, the percentage of hits above 75 mph was much greater in aluminum than it was in wood," Crisco said. "So then does that mean there's a greater risk of injury? That's where it gets difficult because we don't know where that threshold is for risk."

The lawmakers in New York cited safety as their top concern for passing the bat ban. Crisco and other researchers have a difficult time accepting that premise. The reason, they say, is because there's no evidence to support the idea that eliminating metal bats will make baseball safer.

"To say you're doing it for safety is not supported from the data we have or the data that I know of," Crisco said. "You could say you are concerned, but the data doesn't support that there's this safety issue."

It's important to note that baseball is a relatively safe sport for participants. Southeast Missouri State coach Mark Hogan said that in his 25 years of coaching, he hasn't seen many injuries caused by batted balls.

"I just haven't seen fallen players and strange goofy things like zap, there's another one," Hogan said. "I don't want to get crass with it, I just haven't seen it. I've seen guys be able to react, so that's my experience."

Fred Mueller, the director of the National Center for Catastrophic Sport Injury Research at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, said baseball, when stacked against high-impact sports, is considerably safer.

"If you're looking at catastrophic injury and death, I think it's probably a safe sport, especially when you compare it to something like football or ice hockey," Mueller said. "But if you're looking at regular type injuries, I think all sports have regular sprains and strains and contusions and all those types of things. I don't think it's any greater in one sport than another."

Whether players are swinging an aluminum bat or a wood bat, players are still going to get hurt occasionally, Darby said. His concern is over who gets blamed for the injury.

"If a kid gets hit by a ball off an aluminum bat, everyone jumps up and says it's the aluminum bat," he said. "Well what happens when a kid gets hit by a ball off a wood bat? Is the reaction going to be, well that's just part of the game? That's where I get frustrated by it."

IHSA's research project

The Illinois High School Association started a research project this spring with five conferences that are spread throughout the state. The teams in the conferences are using metal bats in their nonconference games and wood bats for conference play.

"It is not a mandate by any means," said Anthony Holman, an assistant executive director with the IHSA. "We just want the data. We want to get out in front of situations like New York and New Jersey and Pennsylvania and Massachusetts, where the legislature is getting involved in mandating some things. We want to be able to say we've taken a look at this. This is what the study shows. This is the information."

Holman said the idea for the project came from the number of calls the IHSA received from concerned parents. He said there were two well-publicized cases in Illinois in the last two years where players were severely injured by batted balls.

"Instead of just saying what we think would be the case or that we believe aluminum bats do this or that we don't think wood bats would last long enough, let's find out," Holman said. "Let's prove it. Let's see what really would happen with wood in a test-case scenario."

Researchers at Illinois State University will analyze the data after the season ends. Holman said the IHSA plans to share the data with its members and the media when it receives it from the researchers.

Mueller is also taking a closer look at the difference between wood and aluminum bats in an effort to provide a definitive answer to the safety question and help quell the debate. He is in the second year of a three-year study that looks at the number of injuries to pitchers where the pitcher has to come out of the game. He's comparing data from NCAA games and wood bat summer collegiate leagues.

"The numbers are not very high, the number of injured pitchers," Mueller said. "We're going to wait until after the third year to come out with any recommendations."

Proponents of the metal bat bans point to who is funding Mueller's research, arguing it's a conflict of interest. The Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association, which has a vested interest in the outcome, funded Mueller's research.

"I think the people in New York are going to say it's not any good because it was funded by the Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association," Mueller said. "I don't know, it all depends on what happens, too. If it works in their favor, they're going to say it was a wonderful study."

Even if Mueller's research provides definitive evidence that metal bats create no greater risk for injury, the chances that the perception will disappear are minimal, and that bothers Darby and his colleagues in the bat industry.

"What worries me about it is just the fact that people are banning a product without any data whatsoever," Darby said. "It's anecdotal evidence. That's my biggest worry, from my standpoint, is just that people are not looking at the facts. Obviously, it would certainly affect the aluminum bat business, but what worries me even more is that people would try to pass legislation without having correct data."

Statistical evidence, regardless of how convincing, likely won't silence critics, Sherwood said.

"As a parent, when your child gets hurt, it's like you're going to do everything you can in your power to protect your child and to protect others," Sherwood said. "So if you have the impression that this bat was so high performing that it compromised the safety of your kid and other kids, then you're going to try to do something about it.

"I don't want to treat them lightly because any accident is a tragedy, especially with Brandon Patch dying in Montana a few years ago. No one should have to experience that. But there are isolated incidence and since there is already this mindset out there that these aluminum bats are dangerous, then it's easy to get people emotionally on the bandwagon to outlaw them."

The opinions of coaches and players will have to suffice until that overwhelming evidence emerges. But their opinions are based on their experiences, and each coach draws from different experience.

"The danger is, for example, to the pitcher on a line drive say back up the middle," Central High School coach Steve Williams said. "That is where the ball just rebounds so quickly off aluminum that there's almost no way for a pitcher to get out of the way sometimes."

Southeast's Hogan doesn't think the bats pose a danger.

"I'm telling you right now, if I thought my guys were in danger of anything, particularly from one of the tools we use, I would be the first guy up on top of the grandstand screaming," he said. "And so would everybody else that's my business because of the relationship we have with these kids. These aren't wind-up dolls. It's our job to put them in a safe environment."