In the Major Leagues, the baseball players use wooden bats.
It was recorded in 2008 that there were more than 750 bats broken during an
at-bat throughout the season. This number was investigated after a piece of
wood from one of the broken bats hit a crowd member at one of the Major League
games and left her with a concussion and broken jaw. After researching the
reason for the high number of broken bats during the games, investigator Dave
Kretschmann, noticed two aspects of the bats to blame – the cut of the grain
and the type of wood used to make the bats. He learned that the bats had been
switched of being made from ash to maple after Barry Bond’s outstanding hitting
season in 2001. Along with the change of wood used, they also noticed that the
wood went at an angle on the handles of the bats instead of straight up and
parallel, which made them less sturdy and solid. The selling of these bats was
said to most likely be unknown due to the angles being much more difficult to
see in the maple than it was in the ash.
It is now mandatory for all bat manufacturers to put a blob of ink on
the end of all bat handles that they sell. This ink blob is said to run along
the grains of the wood, allowing the manufacturers to see the angle in which
the wood is running. They hope that this will secure the selling of the most
solid founded bats. So far, the investigators have seen these ideas to be
working. The number of broken bats in the MLB has decreased to only around 30
percent.
I found this article extremely interesting. Many of the male
figures in my life play, or have played, baseball at some point. I remember
when my brothers were younger they used metal bats. This was changed later due
to the balls being able to be hit too far and with too much power with the
metal make of the bats so they switched to using wooden bats. I had no idea
that the make of the bat had to be so particular. I would have never guessed
that the angle of the wood could cause as much of a difference as the
investigators of this article claim. With the power of the men playing in the
MLB, I think it is a good idea to have these bats checked and made as safely as
possible. A collecting number of incidents such as the audience in this article
could really hurt the Major League if continuing to happen. Another thing I
found intriguing was the idea to use ink to see the lines of the wood. Thinking
on all of the wooden bats my friends own, I remember seeing the darker lines
but never even thinking what they were caused from. I think a large thing to
take from this article is how important it is to be careful when making things.
If a baseball bat needs to be this approved, I cannot even begin to imagine
larger and more important machines. It also proves how something can see
unimportant in the configuration of an item but lead to really hurting people
later on due to the lack of caring or researching.
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