This fall, the baseball teams in nearly a dozen high schools scattered around Illinois may arrive at the diamond armed with something novel: bats made of wood.
There was a time when everybody played baseball with wooden bats. That’s how Lou Gehrig lived his classic New York story–from hard-hitting star at Manhattan’s Commerce High to window-breaker at Columbia University to legendary Yankees slugger.
But in the 1970s, aluminum began to replace hickory, ash and maple. By the end of the decade, aluminum bats, favored because of their durability–unlike wood bats, they don’t break–had blanketed every level of the game save for the American and National League.
A backlash began almost immediately. By the early 1980s, some minor leagues had returned to wooden bats. Now, a growing number of college and high school programs are starting to follow.
This is good for the game, and for the kids who play the game.
The argument against aluminum starts with safety. According to a paper by the United States Geological Survey, “A metal bat temporarily flexes when hit with the ball, and springs back, transferring more energy to the ball than a rigid wooden bat.”
In other words, baseballs travel faster off aluminum than wood. Though numbers are hard to come by, there is a sense that a kid standing in the path of an aluminum-guided hardball missile is more likely to suffer a serious head injury. Oak Lawn High School pitcher Bill Kalant, for instance, wound up in a coma for 10 days after he was hit by a batted ball last year.
Aluminum bats can also have a bad influence on aspiring ballplayers. Many baseball scouts say that players pick up and perpetuate bad habits because the bats have a larger sweet spot. They don’t learn when bad baseball mechanics still produce hits.
“There have been great strides made in the production of wooden bats that make them more durable and more reliable,” said Anthony Holman, who is assistant executive director of the Illinois High School Association and the administrator in charge of baseball.
Holman hopes to convince some bat manufacturers to sponsor the IHSA’s test of wood in some districts this fall.
The IHSA will compile data on safety, run production and durability, and it will then decide whether the results support reinstating the wood standard. Wood could once again be the standard for Illinois high school baseball by 2008.
There’s one more argument against aluminum bats: They ping. When they connect with a ball, they make a hollow, unexciting, uninspiring sound.
It’s often been said that Willie Mays made his legendary, over-the-shoulder catch of Vic Wertz’s long fly ball in the first game of the 1954 World Series because he took off at the crack of the bat.
Willie Mays never heard a ping in baseball, and he’s better for it.
