New Jersey needs to do New York City one better.
The Big Apple has banned the use of metal bats in high school baseball games — a ban upheld by a federal judge Tuesday — saying balls hit with metal bats move faster than those hit with wooden bats, giving players less time to react.
The bats have been blamed for injuries to numerous players around the country, though the bat industry denies there is any connection.
They cite a lack of scientific evidence to show that aluminum bats are less safe, while pointing to a handful of studies that show wood and aluminum perform about the same.
That not only contradicts the anecdotal evidence — most coaches and players would say that aluminum bats allow them to hit the ball farther — but a larger body of analysis that appears to show that aluminum bats increase the speed and distance of batted balls.
The bulk of these studies make these points:
• Aluminum bats are lighter and can be swung at a greater speed.
• They have larger “sweet spots,” or areas on the bat that produces solid contact with the ball.
• And they create a “trampoline effect” in which the bat compresses rather than the ball, causing the ball to lose less energy and fly farther and faster.
Basically, as Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Jeff McLane pointed out earlier this year, “aluminum bats are like bats on steroids.”
That’s why we are hoping the state Senate will adopt legislation already approved by the state Assembly earlier this year that would ban metal and composite wood bats for baseball and softball leagues that involve players who are 17 or younger. The bill has been introduced in the state Senate, but has yet to be heard by the Senate Law and Public Safety and Veterans’ Affairs Committee.
The New Jersey ban, according to news reports, would affect 192,000 young boys and girls in the state in addition to those playing for 370 American Legion teams and 400 high school teams.
Opponents say the ban would increase the cost of running youth leagues. They also believe younger and smaller players, who might not be able to handle the weight of wooden bats, would give up on the game — a contention we doubt, given that the game existed for decades before the first aluminum bat was used.
In the end, this should not be about money but about safety. We believe there is enough evidence, scientific and anecdotal, to support a ban. Aluminum bats mean that fielders — especially young infielders and pitchers — have less time to react to batted balls and that fraction of a second in lost reaction time could result in serious injury.
That’s what happened last year to 13-year-old Steven Domalewski, who was struck by a line drive from a metal bat and sustained a traumatic brain injury.
Waiting for a study to definitively prove what we already know is not only foolish, but dangerous.

