Conservation 101: the Compete to Conserve Blog

photo credit: merfam

Tracing its origin as far back as 16th Century England, “Townball” was a game involving 20 to 30 boys in a field attempting to catch a ball hit by a “tosser”.  The tosser used a four-inch bat with a tapered handle.  The bat was designed to improve leverage and control for the tosser.  Although unconfirmed, baseball folklore believes this is the beginning of the baseball bat.

The baseball bat evolved during the 19th Century, but there were very few limitations imposed upon the instrument.  1884, however, marked the beginning of the wood baseball bat business when a woodworker and his father teamed up with a Louisville player who had just broken his favorite bat.  After providing the player, Pete Browning, with a custom baseball bat made of white ash, the Hillerich family’s baseball bat business began and the official Louisville Slugger was born.

Without dispute, baseball bats are big business.  Even with 100 years of evolution, wood baseball bats used today in Major League Baseball are similar to the ones used by Honus Wagner (the first player to autograph a Louisville Slugger for money).  Even metal and aluminum bats, first patented in 1924, never made a debut in MLB.

The best white ash comes from the Northeastern states where the terrain, soil and climate are most favorable.  The ash is strong, flexible and light in weight.  It takes about 50 years for an ash tree to reach the preferred trunk diameter of 14-16 inches.  In exchange for its life, an ash tree yields about 60 bats.  Manufacturers of the ash bat assure us that there is no diminishing supply of ash trees, and given the dramatic change an aluminum bat would have on baseball statistics, coupled with the possible danger an aluminum bat line-drive would impose upon infielders, it is highly unlikely wood bats will disappear from MLB.

2001 created an interesting wrinkle, however, in the use of wood bats in MLB.  Barry Bonds broke the single-season home run record, and eventually the total home run record in 2007, by using a maple wood baseball bat rather than one made of white ash.  Use of the maple wood bat caught on like wild fire in MLB, and the number of companies now providing this bat also increased.  Although the high moisture content of maple made such bats unavailable in the past, recent technology now removes the excess moisture from the wood to make the high quality, high strength bat favored by MLB players today.

But maple bats are more dangerous, and when they break, the maple shatters, sending shards of wood flying at fans and players alike.  A July 4, 2008 NPR story described the maple bat breaking as an “explosion” with “shards of flying pointed spears” that “draw blood from players… and wound fans”.  Last week’s article in the Philadelphia Daily News called these bats a “deadly weapon”.  And although baseball may not decide upon the future of maple bats any time soon, the question still looms whether the baseball players and fans themselves will outlast the very wood consumed in mass quantities that sustains our nation’s pastime.

The entire NPR story can be heard at http://www.npr.org/templates/player/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=92222323&m=92222319.

Other resources can be found at:

http://www.philly.com/dailynews/sports/columnists/20080724_Bill_Conlin__Explosion_of_maple_bats_bad_for_baseball.html

http://www.latimes.com/sports/baseball/mlb/la-sp-starfyi15-2008jul15,0,2496224.story

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