BY DOUG McKENZIE
Staff Writer
The end of an era? Nobody questions Assemblyman Patrick Diegnan’s motivation for introducing legislation that would require wood bats to be used from Little League through high school levels throughout the state.
That much is clear. While parents, coaches and various league representatives all seem to applaud Diegnan’s interest in the matter, many of them feel it is not something that calls for the involvement of our elected officials.
Others offer research and data that directly contradict the data regarding the safety of nonwood bats offered by Diegnan in his introduction to the proposed bill.
Combined, those views result in an argument stating that today’s nonwood bats are not inherently more dangerous than wood bats.
Safety first
The aluminum bat was introduced in 1970 and was intended as an economical and safer alternative to wood, a bat that would last for a number of seasons without breaking and exposing batters or catchers to the perils of a splintered wood bat.
RICH GRAESSLE The speed at which the ball comes off the bat is one of the many factors that youth baseball and softball leagues, as well as the NCAA, have studied when setting the standards for today’s nonwood bats. In 1971, it was approved for Little League play and approved for college play in 1975. Today, 80 percent of the market is nonwood.
While there have been numerous studies conducted over the past 20 years that have concluded that the ball does indeed exit the bat at a faster rate off a nonwood bat than it does off a wooden one, there are also several studies that question whether that poses a far greater safety risk for players.
For example, in 2002, the Consumer Products Safety Commission examined the purported dangers of aluminum bats and concluded there was not compelling proof to declare they were unsafe.
In the end, it seems, there is no absolute data that can conclusively compare the safety of nonwood bats as compared to wood bats.
That point is even made in the writing of Diegnan’s bill itself, where it states, “while the safety hazard presented by nonwood bats is difficult to quantify, it is generally agreed that nonwood bats hit the ball with greater force than wood bats and present a greater risk.”
BESR, or Ball Exit Speed Ratio, is a rule that applies to all nonwood bats used by all teams affiliated with the NCAA and by all high schools who are members of the National Federation High School Associations (NFHS). All nonwood bats used must bear the BESR certification mark. The BESR certification process, which has been conducted at the Baseball Research Center at UMass-Lowell Department of Mechanical Engineering, ensures a nonwood bat meets four criteria: 1. The maximum exit speed is similar to the performance of the best northern white ash wood bat – 97 mph. 2. The bat’s length to weight differential is no greater than minus-3 (for instance a 34-inch bat must weigh 31 ounces). 3. The barrel diameter may not exceed a maximum of 2 5/8 inches, while bats in the past were 2 3/4 inches, thus the barrel is smaller. 4. The balance point of the bat meets the moment-of-inertia requirement. But those in support of using nonwood bats make a strong argument in response to that generalization.
Take Brian Giallella, the head coach of the Steinert baseball team, who won the state Group IV title this past spring. As a coach who encourages his players to play with wood bats during the off-season to improve their hitting skills, Giallella certainly understands the advantages of using wood versus aluminum. And if that were the reason for the legislation, then he’d likely accept it.
However, the argument that the safety of the players is the reason behind the proposed change simply doesn’t fly with Giallella.
“First of all, let me say that I am sad to hear about the young boy who was hit in the chest with the ball,” he said. “No one wants to see anyone, especially young kids hurt in organized sports. However, there is an assumed risk when you play a sport and that means the possibility of getting hurt. I guess the question is will wood bats prevent injuries, especially at the Little League level. Absolutely not.”
Paul Beinert, a baseball enthusiast from Manalapan, offered his take on the legislation, claiming that the safety of the players is not a responsibility that should fall on the state government.
“The legislation introduced by Assemblyman Diegnan should be rejected as all it does is create a law where none is needed,” he wrote. “Baseball, its organizers, players and parents, must make the effort to address this issue.
“Would it not be wise for the baseball organizations [Little League, Babe Ruth, NCAA] to dictate the specifications of allowable bats based on the age group involved? Could they not start with the characteristics of the wood bat to create an aluminum bat with the same characteristics and allow only bats that meet these standards for 12 and under? Could they not create a sliding scale up through the college level? Increasing the performance of the bats’ characteristics as the kids get older should be agreeable to most of the vested interests. Let us not forget, they already dictate glove sizes and coloring, so adding bat characteristics would not be a very large step for baseball organizations.”
According to Steven Keener, president and chief executive officer of Little League Baseball and Softball, his organization has been very active in addressing the matter, and has done much more than most people realize to insure the safety of the players. As a result, Keener also feels that Diegnan’s proposed legislation is unnecessary.
“I don’t question the assemblyman’s intentions, because I truly believe he’s acting in the interest of protecting children,” he said. “I just don’t think there’s a real understanding of what is already in place to insure their safety.
“We’ve been looking at this matter for the last eight or nine years and based on our empirical data, we don’t see any justification or necessity for such a radical move,” he said. “We have what is essentially a risk-management department … and that department will collect and document all of the injury data, so that we can look at trends and determine if we need to take action.
“I’ll give you an example,” he continued. “About 10 or 11 years ago we noticed a surge in injuries to kids located in the on-deck position, whether it be from foul balls or bats flying, and other things. After determining that the on-deck position is not something that is essential in Little League baseball, our rules committee met, and determined that we don’t need it. As a result, there has been no on-deck position in Little League for the past 10 years.
“The same type of data exists for pitchers and third basemen, to some extent,” Keener added. “We had about 140 such injuries in 1994, and we went to the bat manufacturers and came to an agreement with them that all bats would have to be subjected to what we call a Bat Performance Factor [BPF], which measures the balls exit speed off the bat. The manufacturers agreed to do that, and starting in 1996 [after the manufacturers had gone through all of their existing stock], all of the bats used in LL have had to meet our BPF standards. As a result, from 1994 we’ve seen the number of injuries to pitchers and third basemen from batted balls decrease from that 140 number to about 20 or so per season.”
“We also went to the ball manufacturers, and have since made the compression and the makeup of the balls standardized, in terms of meeting a BPF standard,” Keener added. “As a result, we’ve been able to create a situation where a ball won’t exit off an aluminum bat any faster that it would off the finest quality wood bat.”
Abraham Key, the president of PONY Baseball and Softball, a nationwide organization that has over 375,000 boys and 90,000 girls participating each year, echoes many of the sentiments shared by Keener. Key also questions the data included in Diegnan’s legislation, relying instead on the research done by his own organization.
“Our league’s insurance broker thoroughly tracks claims and injury reports,” Key said. “The data and our experience clearly demonstrate that the game is safe with aluminum bats.”
Ron Davini, the executive director of the National High School Baseball Coaches Association (BCA), has also taken quite an interest in the matter, doing his own research to determine the safety of today’s aluminum bats.
“The introduction of the Ball Exit Speed Ratio [BESR] aluminum bats in the past six years has further improved the aluminum bat by capping performance to ensure today’s aluminum bats perform no better than the best Northern White ash wooden bats,” Davini wrote in a recent article on the BCA’s Web site. “People who claim that aluminum bats are a safety risk and are not beneficial to the game of baseball need to spend more time on the field and more time with young people. After reviewing the facts, I believe most people will conclude and agree that aluminum bats are not a safety risk compared to wooden bats.”
The BESR argument seems to be a common one among proponents of the nonwood bats, and the effects of the introduction of the BESR can be seen at the college level.
According to Davini, the BESR certification process, which has been conducted at the Baseball Research Center at UMass-Lowell Department of Mechanical Engineering, ensures an aluminum bat meets four criteria:
The maximum exit speed is similar to the performance of the best Northern White Ash wood bat – 97 miles per hour; the bat’s length-to-weight differential is no greater than minus-3 (for instance a 34-inch bat must weigh 31 ounces – the bat is heavier); the barrel diameter may not exceed a maximum of 2 5/8 inches, whereas bats in the past were 2 3/4 inches, thus the barrel is smaller; and the balance point of the bat meets the moment-of-inertia requirement.
After the 1998 College World Series, in which USC beat Arizona State, 21-14, the NCAA took some of the pop out of the bats by setting the 97 mph speed limit at which the ball can come off the bat.
On Sept. 28, 1999, the NCAA Executive Committee announced that they supported a recommendation from the NCAA Baseball Research Panel that the solid northern ash wooden bat performance should become the standard for setting limits on all baseball bat performance.
The standard was then adopted on Jan. 1, 1999.
According to Monmouth University head baseball coach Dean Ehehalt, that standard has helped the college game a great deal.
“The NCAA has done a lot to make the aluminum bats perform closer to what a wood bat would do,” he said. “Years ago, it was an arm’s race; every year the bats were getting better.”
“High schools adopted the BESR standards one year after the NCAA,” Davini said. “All leagues with high school-age players use BESR bats as well. The impact of these bats, comparing statistics from prior to 1998, have been very favorable. Scoring, batting averages and home runs are down in leagues across the nation.
“Before the introduction of BESR bats, it could be argued that the collegiate games were out of balance. Offenses, and particularly the home run, were becoming dominant in college baseball. Now, there are fewer home runs per game in college than there are in professional baseball.”
Giallella also feels that the BESR standards have allowed both leagues and the bat manufacturers to control the effectiveness of the bats.
“My feeling is that the bat companies have done their studies regarding the BESR, how fast the ball comes off of the bat,” he said. “Remember if this ratio becomes dangerous, then they can adjust this ratio and the exit speed by changing the components of the bat. It has not come to that, and hopefully it will never need to be changed.”
CBA head baseball coach Marty Kenney, who recently completed his 33rd year coaching one of the state’s premier high school programs, is in favor of the bill, but argues with the assertion that today’s nonwood bats are more dangerous than wood bats.
“I don’t agree with that,” he said. “Maybe from the late 1980s to the late 1990s they were more dangerous. But once they made the changes recently, it seems the ball’s exit speed isn’t what it was. In the late ’90s, it was a situation where the kids, especially pitchers, were in a dangerous position. But I don’t see it as much now.
“[Accidents] are still going to happen,” he added. “It even happens with wood bats. But there is certainly less of a likelihood of that kind of thing than there was six to seven years ago. They’ve done a good job with that.”
Ehehalt agrees.
“I don’t see a reason to go all wood from a personal standpoint,” he said. “Kids get hurt in everything they do.”
Obviously, for every study pointing to the dangers of aluminum bats, there is one contradicting its findings. The question is, who should be responsible for determining which study to embrace?
Keener certainly has his view on the matter.
“I think the government doesn’t need to be involved in legislating youth sports,” he said. “We have the data and the resources to determine when a safety issue needs to be examined. … If the data ever gets to a point that it indicates that it’s something we need to look at, we’ll do it immediately. Our record on safety speaks for itself.”
As for the bat manufacturers themselves, they too have questioned any legislation that attacks the safety of their products.
“I would hope that if Assemblyman Diegnan, or any politician, feels there’s a safety issue, before he makes a statement such as this, he would contact the league representatives and look at all the data they have on the matter and do his research,” said Jim Darby, vice president of promotions for Easton Sports. “I would hope that a bill such as this would be based on that type of information rather than any innuendo or anecdotal things.”
And in terms of the safety of the bats themselves, Darby is quick to point out that the bat manufacturers don’t determine what makes a bat safe.
“We make our bats to the standards set forth by the various leagues,” he said. “If this is a safety issue, then it’s not the manufacturers you should be talking to. … This is not our domain here.”
The dangers of wood
So much has been written about the potential dangers of using nonwood bats, but what kind of negative impacts, if any, would there be if Diegnan’s bill were passed?
“I encourage my players to use wood during the off-season and have them use wood during select practices to get them to understand how to become a better hitter,” Giallella said. “These are varsity players, 17- or 18-year-olds, and some of them have a hard time hitting with wood, and it takes them a while to learn how to be consistent. Now try putting a wood bat in a 13-, 14- or 15-year-old’s hands and tell me how successful they will be.
“It may discourage some players to the point of quitting,” Giallella said. “It can be very frustrating. Now what about a Little League player, who is used to an aluminum bat that has a length-to-weight differential of minus-11 or so. They have to use a wood bat that is much heavier, and will in reality change baseball. What you will see is the number of kids involved in baseball drastically drop because of failure. There are enough problems in this world that cause kids to stop playing organized sports, it is not necessary to add another.”
Dean Ehehalt, head coach of the Monmouth University baseball team who does not necessarily see the need for the switch to wood bats, agreed with Giallella’s prediction.
“Not every kid can succeed in baseball if they’re hitting with wood bats,” he said. “Kids that are middle-of-the-pool players are going to find that the game’s harder. So you may see participation fall a bit at some of the younger levels.”
Key added that such a drastic change could lead to both baseball and softball being perceived as more dangerous sports than they actually are.
“We are concerned that fathers and mothers may perceive baseball and softball as unsafe,” he said. “And as children [and parents] have many choices for their recreation and sport activities, the game of youth baseball and softball may suffer if it is wrongfully perceived to be dangerous.”
Others argue that New Jersey youngsters will suffer when it comes to how they are scouted at the collegiate level, speculating that a college scout could potentially pass on a borderline player based solely on the fact that they have had no previous experience with nonwood bats. This scenario could seemingly come into play even more for pitchers, who have never faced batters using nonwood bats.
“No question about it, they’d be at a disadvantage,” Johnny Johnson, the head coach of Brookdale Community College’s baseball team. “Perfect example was in this year’s [Division II Junior] College World Series. There was a team from Arizona that was one of the top teams in the country, playing out of a wood-bat league. But they couldn’t get out of the first round because their pitchers had not [previously] pitched to batters with aluminum bats.”
However, just about everyone interviewed agreed that the impact of using wood bats would not affect a player’s perceived hitting potential.
“I don’t think it’s really going to make much of a difference in how they’re scouted,” Johnson said. “You can tell a lot of things about a hitter, like the quickness of his hands and his coordination regardless of what kind of bat he’s using. If a kid can hit with a wood bat, he can definitely hit with an aluminum bat.
“I don’t think it will have an effect one way or another on how they’re scouted,” Ehehalt said. “It’s easier to make the transition from wood to metal, once you get to the college level.
“If anything, [playing with wood bats] helps hitters develop. The wood bats have a smaller sweet spot, so you’ve got to be a little better hitter to make good contact.”
And as for the switch negatively affecting young pitchers, Ehehalt thinks it would have the opposite effect at the Little League and high school levels.
“It will help them out a great deal,” he said. “It’s hard to pitch inside with aluminum bats because kids can always muscle the ball. But with the wood bats, it’s easier to get jammed.”
As a result, he added, young pitchers will develop more confidence in their abilities, which can only help to become better players.
Kenney added that the use of wood bats can help the scouts as well.
“I think [the use of wood bats] allows the scouts to more accurately evaluate the players,” Kenney said. “[Nonwood bats] make average hitters above average, and above-average hitters even better.”
“As long as the playing field is level, I think what kind of bat they’re using is kind of irrelevant,” Monmouth Regional High School coach Ted Jarmusz said, adding that the switch to wood bats would actually help a player’s chances to get drafted straight out of high school “The big knock on kids getting drafted out of high school has always been that they don’t have an indicator for what their power numbers may be [with wood bats] because the margin of error with these aluminum bats is so great.
“My feeling is that a standout high school player is going to move on regardless of what kind of bat he’s using,” Jarmusz said, adding that New Jersey’s switch to wood bats exclusively could eventually have a big impact on the college level.
“I’ve got a feeling that if the high school levels go to wood bats, what would be the college’s motivation for staying with aluminum?”
Johnson, for one, would love to see the switch to wood bats reach the college level.
“I think everybody should use wood bats, from Little League through the major leagues, even college,” he said. “I don’t think it’s ever going to happen because the price would be astronomical.”