Bad Bats!

The New York Times is reporting that metal baseball bats could be banned from New York City public school sports activities ("Council Moves Toward Ban on Metal High School Bats," Chan, Sewell; March 13, 2007):

New York City would become one of the first cities in the country to prohibit the use of metal bats in high school baseball games, under a bill that a City Council committee approved yesterday and that the full Council is considered all but certain to pass tomorrow.

The issue has sharply divided youth baseball leagues, coaches, players and fans. Industry groups have hired lobbying and public relations firms to oppose the bill, while parents of players severely injured by balls hit off metal bats have given tearful testimony in support of it.

I actually didn't realize these bats were an issue, myself. I liked metal bats more than wooden ones when I was growing up. The mayor's office could be against the ban:

“The mayor has some skepticism both about whether this bill fixes the problem it says it does and whether this is something the government should be doing,” a mayoral spokesman, Stu Loeser, said yesterday. “He has made no decision about a veto.”

What is the problem anyway? It's buried a little further along in the article:

The bill’s leading proponent, Councilman James S. Oddo, said that youth baseball regulatory bodies had failed to respond to highly publicized episodes in which children were critically injured by balls hit with metal bats.

I guess wooden bats can't even hurt a fly.

So what does this come down to? Municipal waste:

According to the Council, it would cost the city’s public high schools $253,500 to replace 5,070 metal or metal-composite bats used by 169 baseball teams with wood bats, and $67,600 a year thereafter to replace broken wood bats. The bill’s sponsors said they would ask donors to defray the costs for private and parochial schools.

Simply speaking, it would be cheaper to ban baseball.

However, there is merit to the claim that metal bats maybe hit balls faster:

Researchers from Brown University found in 2001 that baseballs hit with a metal bat traveled faster than those hit with a wood bat, but could not conclusively identify the factors responsible for the difference in performance. Since then, the N.C.A.A. and the National Federation of State High School Associations have adopted rules requiring that metal bats perform no better than the best wood bats.

On Sunday, Richard M. Greenwald, one of the Brown researchers, wrote that he knew of no scientific data to support the notion “that the use of nonwood bats poses an unacceptable risk to children, particularly high school competitive players,” according to an e-mail message released by Easton Sports.

Bat makers have hired Suri Kasirer and Stanley K. Schlein, prominent city lobbyists, and Knickerbocker SKD, a media consulting firm. Mr. Ettinger, the lawyer for Easton Sports, said yesterday that the ban, if enacted, could face a strong legal challenge.