Introduction
June 2016 - Metal bat safety was a hot issue five years ago. Now, you don't hear anything about metal bat safety, and you seldom hear high school governing bodies talk about switching to wood bats.
Metal bat safety is no longer a hot issue primarily because the National Federation of High Schools imposed a bat safety standard that reduced the speed at which balls fly off of aluminum bats. This relatively new Batted Ball Coefficient of Restitution Standard has literally taken the juice out of what was once a hot issue. We no longer read stories about high school pitchers dying from souped up bats. See Five Years Later, BBCOR Baseball Bat Standard Making Amateur Game Safer by Paul Franklin, Philly Voice, May 11, 2015.
The BBCOR standard notwithstanding, baseball safety can raise its head anytime anybody is hit by a batted ball. After all, BBCOR simply slows the ball's exit speed off of a bat. The speed of the ball coming off of a wood bat or a metal bat is still sufficiently high to cause an injury. Indeed, the bat isn't even necessary to cause injury. One can suffer serious harm by being hit in the head by a thrown baseball.
The issue of reducing the risk of harm from baseballs will stay with us even if it manifests in different forms. We've seen it in California's rule that adults in the coaching box must wear helmets. We'll see it in other forms in years to come.
Legislative restrictions on composite bats may help lower income players continue to play baseball. The common wisdom is that a substantial number of youth sports programs really couldn't bear the economic costs of wood bats. Indeed, inner city schools could suffer disproportionately. Higher costs may drive more lower income minorities out of the game. See Why Baseball Is Now So White by C.W. Nevius, San Francisco Chronicle, April 23, 2007 page A2.
Of course, we may be able to gather data on whether bat bans disproportionately harm low income players. New York City did pass a bat ban in 2007. At some point, we can get data as to how that ban impacted inner city baseball, and minority participation in New York.
We also may see safety data accrued since the BBCOR standard was adopted used to overturn the New York ban one day. After all, even before BBCOR there were very few catastrophic baseball bat injuries. Of those few, some occurred with metal bats and some with wood. However, anybody who suffers a catastrophic injury with a metal bat could argue that the wood bat's exit speed ratio is just a bit slower; therefore, they'd have had a slightly better chance of not incurring the injury. There were so few bat injuries that they were statistically insignificant when New York passed its ban. However, the voices of those few people who have suffered are pretty compelling. Still, data rules and in the near future there could be enough data for us to balance the statistical risk of harm under BBCOR against any threat to low income players being able to sustain baseball under the New York law.
There's not a lot to monitor for now, but we'll keep our eyes open in case this issue becomes a hot one again. In the meantime, you can read the old cases from the pre-BBCOR days below.
Metal bat safety is no longer a hot issue primarily because the National Federation of High Schools imposed a bat safety standard that reduced the speed at which balls fly off of aluminum bats. This relatively new Batted Ball Coefficient of Restitution Standard has literally taken the juice out of what was once a hot issue. We no longer read stories about high school pitchers dying from souped up bats. See Five Years Later, BBCOR Baseball Bat Standard Making Amateur Game Safer by Paul Franklin, Philly Voice, May 11, 2015.
The BBCOR standard notwithstanding, baseball safety can raise its head anytime anybody is hit by a batted ball. After all, BBCOR simply slows the ball's exit speed off of a bat. The speed of the ball coming off of a wood bat or a metal bat is still sufficiently high to cause an injury. Indeed, the bat isn't even necessary to cause injury. One can suffer serious harm by being hit in the head by a thrown baseball.
The issue of reducing the risk of harm from baseballs will stay with us even if it manifests in different forms. We've seen it in California's rule that adults in the coaching box must wear helmets. We'll see it in other forms in years to come.
Legislative restrictions on composite bats may help lower income players continue to play baseball. The common wisdom is that a substantial number of youth sports programs really couldn't bear the economic costs of wood bats. Indeed, inner city schools could suffer disproportionately. Higher costs may drive more lower income minorities out of the game. See Why Baseball Is Now So White by C.W. Nevius, San Francisco Chronicle, April 23, 2007 page A2.
Of course, we may be able to gather data on whether bat bans disproportionately harm low income players. New York City did pass a bat ban in 2007. At some point, we can get data as to how that ban impacted inner city baseball, and minority participation in New York.
We also may see safety data accrued since the BBCOR standard was adopted used to overturn the New York ban one day. After all, even before BBCOR there were very few catastrophic baseball bat injuries. Of those few, some occurred with metal bats and some with wood. However, anybody who suffers a catastrophic injury with a metal bat could argue that the wood bat's exit speed ratio is just a bit slower; therefore, they'd have had a slightly better chance of not incurring the injury. There were so few bat injuries that they were statistically insignificant when New York passed its ban. However, the voices of those few people who have suffered are pretty compelling. Still, data rules and in the near future there could be enough data for us to balance the statistical risk of harm under BBCOR against any threat to low income players being able to sustain baseball under the New York law.
There's not a lot to monitor for now, but we'll keep our eyes open in case this issue becomes a hot one again. In the meantime, you can read the old cases from the pre-BBCOR days below.
General Information - the Pre-BBCOR CASES
Lexington, KY - March 28, 2011 - A year after a national metal bat controversy arose when a baseball player took a near-fatal blow to the head, a girls' softball player is nearly killed. However, this story hasn't generated a national metal bat discussion. It's still a sad story, though, and we can only hope that the girl has a speedy recovery. See Rockcastle Softball Player Continues To Recover, Channel 18 News, Lexington, KY, April 6, 2011; and Softball Player Recovering After Brain Surgery by Pinky Mehta, Associated Press, published in Lexington Herald-Leader, March 30, 2011.
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San Francisco, CA - July 28, 2010 - For more on the metal bat controversy, see As Injuries Mount, Debate Over Metal Baseball Bats Continues by Jorge L. Ortiz, USA Today, July 28, 2010.
Santa Rosa, CA - March 26, 2010 - National Bat Standards Change in 2012. Santa Rosa ballplayers discuss metal vs. wood bats. Will the new standards slow things down? They're supposed to more accurately simulate wood. See New Metal Bats Will Pack Less Punch by Eric Branch, Santa Rosa Press Democrat, March 26, 2010.
Greenbrae, CA - March 15, 2010 - Head Injury Leads To Metal Bat Questions In Marin County, CA. See Prep Baseball: Marin Catholic Pitcher In Induced Coma After Being Hit In The Head By Line Drive by John Swartz, Marin Independent Journal, March 15, 2010; Serious Injury Renews Call To Ban Metal Bats, KTVU Channel 2, San Francisco, March 15, 2010; and Marin Boy's Injury Puts Focus On Metal Bats by Carolyn Jones, San Francisco Chronicle page A-1, March 23, 2010. See California Update for more information on California and Metal Bat Issues.
Montana - October 28, 2009 - Big Blow To Metal Bats. Montana Jury Awards $850,000 In Aluminum Bat Lawsuit, Associated Press Wire in Salt Lake City's Deseret News, October 28, 2009.
SF Columnist Goes After Metal Bats But His Colleague Just Went After Maple Bats Last Year. No problem. Newspapers don't have to take consistent positions. We would hope, though, that newspapers rely upon data. The columnist who doesn't like metal bats rejects an Illinois study that found no difference in the number of injuries in a 8,000 at bat comparison between wood and metal bats. The columnist who didn't like the wood bats didn't rely upon research, but there's definitely research that supports the dangers of the maple bat. Major League Baseball licensed a study that shows that maple bats snap while ash bats crack. The snapped bat heads and splinters create an enhanced risk since they're flying around the stadium. The cracked bats hold together, minimizing risk. Now, that's science. Anyway, relying solely on the science one could argue that eliminating metal bats and replacing them with wood bats may not be too good if the wood bats are maple. A third columnist from the paper thinks he's got the solution. He may be onto something. He says the new radial bat may be the answer to the maple bat problem. Of course, another solution is to keep metal bats and simply lower the bat exit speed. As metal bats can be designed with higher or lower bat exit speeds, it is possible to design metal bats that react identically to wood. It is even possible to design metal bats that are less lively than wood. To see all the SF columns, see Metal Bats - An Accident Waiting To Happen by Will McCulloch, San Francisco Chronicle page D7, May 26, 2009; Maple Bats are Risky Business by Bruce Jenkins, San Francisco Chronicle, June 9, 2008 page C1; and A Wedge Issue: Finding a Safer Bat Design by Tom Fitzgerald, San Francisco Chronicle, May 1, 2009.
Metal Bat Ban Before New York State Legislature - Radical New Wood Bats Hit Market! See New Jersey Company Looking To Break Into Wood Bat Market, Staten Island Advance, March 13, 2009. See the following hot, new wood bat companies: The Radial Bat; The 360 Woody. Click here for the metal bat page. Click here for text of New York Bill. Also see A Wedge Issue: Finding a Safer Bat Design by Tom Fitzgerald, San Francisco Chronicle, May 1, 2009.
Little Falls, N.J. - August 27, 2008 - Can Ward Dill Make The Unbreakable Bat? See Bat Inventor Hopes To Take 'Ping' Out of Baseball by Tom Canavan, AP Sports Writer on Yahoo.com.
Could Metal Bats Be Safer Than Wood Bats After All? See Baseball at Breaking Point Over Maple Bats by Jeff Passan, Yahoo Sports, May 9, 2008. For more, see Maple Bats are Risky Business by Bruce Jenkins, San Francisco Chronicle, June 9, 2008 page C1.
New York, N.Y. - July 1, 2007 - Legal Threats to Metal Bats Lead To Rise of The 360 Woody, A Souped Up Wood Bat. See As Laws Change, So Does the Baseball Bat by Brendan I. Koerner, New York Times, July 1, 2007 Sunday Business Section p. 2. Click here for world-latest-news.com reprint. Click here to visit the Young Bat Company (they make the 360 Woody) and here for Young's 360 Woody Information.
New York, N.Y. - April 17, 2007 - Scientists Confirm Bat Advantage, Question Risks, New York Daily News, April 17, 2007. This article cites scientific studies that reconfirm that balls exit metal bats faster but not so fast as to create increased chance of risks. Scientists can still find no evidence that metal bats result in increased injuries.
New Jersey - July 23, 2006 - A Matter of Life or Death? by Adam Zagoria, New Jersey Herald News, July 23, 2006.
State Cases
California Update
Sacramento, CA - August 12, 2010 - The California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) took major strides toward resolving a bat controversy, and improving bat safety.
The controversy started with a catastrophic injury to 16-year old Gunnar Sandberg, a Marin Catholic High School pitcher who was hit in the head with a line drive and nearly killed. Gunnar is still recovering from his head injuries some 6 months after he was hit. Following Gunnar's injury, Jared Huffman, a California State Assemblyman from Marin, introduced legislation mandating wood bats.
Huffman dropped his legislation after the CIF announced that it will require metal bats that meet a new safety standard to be implemented immediately. Those bats were going to be nationally required in 2012. The new metal bats must meet the Batted Ball Coefficient of Restitution Performance Standard (BBCOR), a standard that ensures that metal bats react more like wood bats.
The CIF went a lot further than instituting the BBCOR standard. The CIF joined the NCAA in banning composite bats, and ruled that new bats also must be certified as tamper proof, a vital certification since many older bats could be "rolled", a process that allowed them to be altered to exceed the old bat safety standards, thereby allowing batters to gain an edge and putting pitchers at risk of being injured by a "hot" bat. The CIF also will begin work on creating safety standards for pitcher and fielder protective head-gear. This will likely be controversial, but other sports have been through mandatory safety equipment controversies and survived.
For the latest, see Deal Reached on Metal Bats, Protective Headgear by Marisa Lagos, San Francisco Chronicle, August 12, 2010, page A-1. For more, see Prep Baseball: Marin Catholic Pitcher In Induced Coma After Being Hit In The Head By Line Drive by John Swartz, Marin Independent Journal, March 15, 2010; Serious Injury Renews Call To Ban Metal Bats, KTVU Channel 2, San Francisco, March 15, 2010; and Marin Boy's Injury Puts Focus On Metal Bats by Carolyn Jones, San Francisco Chronicle page A-1, March 23, 2010.
Gunnar's league played the 2010 season with wood bats after Gunnar's injury. Before the CIF took action, Gunnar's league and his California regional Section addressed the metal bat vs. wood bat controversy. The Section considered a complete metal bat ban, but opted against it. See Landmark Decision Coming On Metal Bats by Mitch Stephens, San Francisco Chronicle, April 20, 2010 page B2; Gil Lemmon, the CIF North Coast Section Commissioner, prepares for the vote by putting together one of the best compilations of bat injury research around. ; NCS Rejects Proposed Ban On Metal Bats by Mitch Stephens, San Francisco Chronicle, April 27, 2010 page B6.
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California - June 13, 2010 - Click here for ESPN's Outside The Line's Metal Bat Story.
Illinois Study
September, 2007 - Illinois Wood Bat vs. Metal Bat Study: The Results Are In And There's No Significant Difference In Safety. Click Here For The NFHS's Illinois Wooden Bat Study Press Release; for newspaper coverage see, Illinois Study Sheds Light On Wood Bat vs. Non-Wood Bat Issue, Eden Prairie News.com, September 28, 2007.
2007 - Illinois Conducts Wood Bat vs. Metal Bat Study. The IHSA has received a grant from the NFHS to conduct the experiment, which will be used by various conferences and schools from around the state. The experiment will collect data in three main areas: bat breakage rates, offensive production, and batted ball injuries. Interested individuals should contact the IHSA for more information. See Sept. 11, 2006 IHSA Announcements. See IHSA Wooden Bat Study by Samuel W. Killian, Illinois High School Baseball Report, April 25, 2007. This report lists the conferences participating in the study. An interesting note - the NFHS has informed me that urban public schools did not volunteer to participate in the student because of the high cost of using wooden bats, which break at a sufficiently high rate to drive up costs.
Legal Update
New York, N.Y. May 30, 2007 - Baseball Coalition Files Motion, Asks Judge To Toss Bat Ban, Yahoo.com - Yahoo News.
New York, N.Y. May 7, 2007 - Coalition Sues New York City to Block Bat Ban, Protect Player Choice, FindLaw.com.
New York, N.Y. April 23, 2007 - "Don't Take My Bat Away" Threatens Suit. See "Don't Take My Bat Away," Say Baseball Backers, April 23, 2007 Press Release on Sporting Goods Manufacturers' Association Press Release.
Illinois Bill
Chicago Metal Bat Ban Fails in 2009, but one reporter wonders whether litigators can achieve what legislators did not. See Trial Lawyers Take A Swing At Youth Baseball by Curt Mercadante, Madison/St. Clair Record, March 1, 2009.
Click Here for text of Illinois HB 4140, a Bill to ban metal bats that is currently pending in the Illinois legislature. HB 4140 ultimately died when the Legislative Session expired. Click Here to track the Bill's path through the Illinois legislature.
Taking a Swing at Aluminum Bats by Kevin McDermott, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, February 27, 2008.
Chicago and Illinois on Edge of Banning Non-Wood Baseball Bats by Antonio Romanucci and Stephan Blandin, Chicago Injury Blog, February 17, 2008.
New Mexico Wood Bat Rule
New Mexico made the move to wood bats in 2012. See New Mexico High School Teams Re-Embrace Wood Bats For 2012 Season by Reyes Mata, III, Las Cruces Sun, February 5, 2012, reprinted in Athletic Business Magazine.
New York Ban
New York City's Metal Bat Ban - 2007
Click here for Bill's text.
Click here to track the Bill's Path Through the New York City Council.
New York, N.Y. June 4, 2007 - Wood vs. Metal Batted Around: Advocates of Wooden Bats Take Swing For Safety, but Opponents Undaunted by Jack Carey, USA Today, June 4, 2007 page 1C. For expanded coverage click here. Carey's article refers to Consumer Product Safety Commission data. Click here for that data, which is contained in a letter to a Texas man who wanted regulations requiring all metal bats to exactly replicate wood bats. 's report. In short, metal bats meet federal safety standards.
New York, N.Y. April 24, 2007 - Mike's Brushed Back: Bloomberg Vetoes Kayoed on Metal Bats Ban, Pedicab Crackdown by Frank Lombardi, New York Daily News, April 24, 2007.
New York, N.Y. April 23, 2007 - NYC Bat Ban Passes Final Hurdle, New York Daily News, April 23, 2007.
New Jersey Bill
Click here for text of AB 3388, a Bill to ban metal bats in New Jersey that is currently pending in the New Jersey Legislature.
New Jersey, Oct. 22, 2006 - Ball Field Injury Spurs Push to Limit Metal Bats in New Jersey by Nate Schweber, New York Times, Oct. 22, 2006.
North Dakota Ban
In North Dakota, the State High School Association banned metal bats and part of the reason was, strangely enough, economics. Most organizations believe that it is cost prohibitive to play with wood bats. The wood bats cost less, but they break so often that schools and youth leagues believe that they'll spend far more money on bats than they do when they use metal bats. The North Dakotans see it differently. "Financially, metal bats are up around $300 per bat, and you can get 30 maple bats for the price of four aluminum bats," said Fargo Shanley High School Coach Joel Swanson (quoted in the March 30 Bismarck Tribune - see link below).
Bismarck, N.D., March 30, 2007 - Return of Wood Bats Will Give New Look To Baseball Season, Bismarck Tribune, March 30, 2007.
Pennsylvania Bill
Note: The Pennsylvania Bill ultimately died in Committee after the Pennsylvania Governor stated that he would veto the Bill if it ever emerged from the Legislature. The Bill was referred to Committee in 2007 and has never emerged.
October, 2007 - Pennsylvania Bat Ban Looks Like Loser - Click Here For Don't Take My Bat Away Press Release.
Click here for Pennsylvania Bill's Text
Pennsylvania, Sept. 27, 2007 - Pennsylvania Legislature Goes After Metal Bats: See Metal Bat Ban Proposed In PA, CBS3.com, Harrisburg, PA, Sept. 27, 2007 (this story covers House Committee hearings on the Pennsylvania proposed ban).
Pennsylvania - July 11, 2007 - Click here for articles on new Pennsylvania metal bat ban legislation. Metal Bats Under Fire Again by Mark Dent, Bucks County Courier Times, July 11, 2007. Also, see this article from South Williamsport, PA: Lawmakers Study Safety of Metal Bats by Genaro C. Armas, foxnews.com, July 7, 2007.
Sacramento, CA - August 12, 2010 - The California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) took major strides toward resolving a bat controversy, and improving bat safety.
The controversy started with a catastrophic injury to 16-year old Gunnar Sandberg, a Marin Catholic High School pitcher who was hit in the head with a line drive and nearly killed. Gunnar is still recovering from his head injuries some 6 months after he was hit. Following Gunnar's injury, Jared Huffman, a California State Assemblyman from Marin, introduced legislation mandating wood bats.
Huffman dropped his legislation after the CIF announced that it will require metal bats that meet a new safety standard to be implemented immediately. Those bats were going to be nationally required in 2012. The new metal bats must meet the Batted Ball Coefficient of Restitution Performance Standard (BBCOR), a standard that ensures that metal bats react more like wood bats.
The CIF went a lot further than instituting the BBCOR standard. The CIF joined the NCAA in banning composite bats, and ruled that new bats also must be certified as tamper proof, a vital certification since many older bats could be "rolled", a process that allowed them to be altered to exceed the old bat safety standards, thereby allowing batters to gain an edge and putting pitchers at risk of being injured by a "hot" bat. The CIF also will begin work on creating safety standards for pitcher and fielder protective head-gear. This will likely be controversial, but other sports have been through mandatory safety equipment controversies and survived.
For the latest, see Deal Reached on Metal Bats, Protective Headgear by Marisa Lagos, San Francisco Chronicle, August 12, 2010, page A-1. For more, see Prep Baseball: Marin Catholic Pitcher In Induced Coma After Being Hit In The Head By Line Drive by John Swartz, Marin Independent Journal, March 15, 2010; Serious Injury Renews Call To Ban Metal Bats, KTVU Channel 2, San Francisco, March 15, 2010; and Marin Boy's Injury Puts Focus On Metal Bats by Carolyn Jones, San Francisco Chronicle page A-1, March 23, 2010.
Gunnar's league played the 2010 season with wood bats after Gunnar's injury. Before the CIF took action, Gunnar's league and his California regional Section addressed the metal bat vs. wood bat controversy. The Section considered a complete metal bat ban, but opted against it. See Landmark Decision Coming On Metal Bats by Mitch Stephens, San Francisco Chronicle, April 20, 2010 page B2; Gil Lemmon, the CIF North Coast Section Commissioner, prepares for the vote by putting together one of the best compilations of bat injury research around. ; NCS Rejects Proposed Ban On Metal Bats by Mitch Stephens, San Francisco Chronicle, April 27, 2010 page B6.
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California - June 13, 2010 - Click here for ESPN's Outside The Line's Metal Bat Story.
Illinois Study
September, 2007 - Illinois Wood Bat vs. Metal Bat Study: The Results Are In And There's No Significant Difference In Safety. Click Here For The NFHS's Illinois Wooden Bat Study Press Release; for newspaper coverage see, Illinois Study Sheds Light On Wood Bat vs. Non-Wood Bat Issue, Eden Prairie News.com, September 28, 2007.
2007 - Illinois Conducts Wood Bat vs. Metal Bat Study. The IHSA has received a grant from the NFHS to conduct the experiment, which will be used by various conferences and schools from around the state. The experiment will collect data in three main areas: bat breakage rates, offensive production, and batted ball injuries. Interested individuals should contact the IHSA for more information. See Sept. 11, 2006 IHSA Announcements. See IHSA Wooden Bat Study by Samuel W. Killian, Illinois High School Baseball Report, April 25, 2007. This report lists the conferences participating in the study. An interesting note - the NFHS has informed me that urban public schools did not volunteer to participate in the student because of the high cost of using wooden bats, which break at a sufficiently high rate to drive up costs.
Legal Update
New York, N.Y. May 30, 2007 - Baseball Coalition Files Motion, Asks Judge To Toss Bat Ban, Yahoo.com - Yahoo News.
New York, N.Y. May 7, 2007 - Coalition Sues New York City to Block Bat Ban, Protect Player Choice, FindLaw.com.
New York, N.Y. April 23, 2007 - "Don't Take My Bat Away" Threatens Suit. See "Don't Take My Bat Away," Say Baseball Backers, April 23, 2007 Press Release on Sporting Goods Manufacturers' Association Press Release.
Illinois Bill
Chicago Metal Bat Ban Fails in 2009, but one reporter wonders whether litigators can achieve what legislators did not. See Trial Lawyers Take A Swing At Youth Baseball by Curt Mercadante, Madison/St. Clair Record, March 1, 2009.
Click Here for text of Illinois HB 4140, a Bill to ban metal bats that is currently pending in the Illinois legislature. HB 4140 ultimately died when the Legislative Session expired. Click Here to track the Bill's path through the Illinois legislature.
Taking a Swing at Aluminum Bats by Kevin McDermott, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, February 27, 2008.
Chicago and Illinois on Edge of Banning Non-Wood Baseball Bats by Antonio Romanucci and Stephan Blandin, Chicago Injury Blog, February 17, 2008.
New Mexico Wood Bat Rule
New Mexico made the move to wood bats in 2012. See New Mexico High School Teams Re-Embrace Wood Bats For 2012 Season by Reyes Mata, III, Las Cruces Sun, February 5, 2012, reprinted in Athletic Business Magazine.
New York Ban
New York City's Metal Bat Ban - 2007
Click here for Bill's text.
Click here to track the Bill's Path Through the New York City Council.
New York, N.Y. June 4, 2007 - Wood vs. Metal Batted Around: Advocates of Wooden Bats Take Swing For Safety, but Opponents Undaunted by Jack Carey, USA Today, June 4, 2007 page 1C. For expanded coverage click here. Carey's article refers to Consumer Product Safety Commission data. Click here for that data, which is contained in a letter to a Texas man who wanted regulations requiring all metal bats to exactly replicate wood bats. 's report. In short, metal bats meet federal safety standards.
New York, N.Y. April 24, 2007 - Mike's Brushed Back: Bloomberg Vetoes Kayoed on Metal Bats Ban, Pedicab Crackdown by Frank Lombardi, New York Daily News, April 24, 2007.
New York, N.Y. April 23, 2007 - NYC Bat Ban Passes Final Hurdle, New York Daily News, April 23, 2007.
New Jersey Bill
Click here for text of AB 3388, a Bill to ban metal bats in New Jersey that is currently pending in the New Jersey Legislature.
New Jersey, Oct. 22, 2006 - Ball Field Injury Spurs Push to Limit Metal Bats in New Jersey by Nate Schweber, New York Times, Oct. 22, 2006.
North Dakota Ban
In North Dakota, the State High School Association banned metal bats and part of the reason was, strangely enough, economics. Most organizations believe that it is cost prohibitive to play with wood bats. The wood bats cost less, but they break so often that schools and youth leagues believe that they'll spend far more money on bats than they do when they use metal bats. The North Dakotans see it differently. "Financially, metal bats are up around $300 per bat, and you can get 30 maple bats for the price of four aluminum bats," said Fargo Shanley High School Coach Joel Swanson (quoted in the March 30 Bismarck Tribune - see link below).
Bismarck, N.D., March 30, 2007 - Return of Wood Bats Will Give New Look To Baseball Season, Bismarck Tribune, March 30, 2007.
Pennsylvania Bill
Note: The Pennsylvania Bill ultimately died in Committee after the Pennsylvania Governor stated that he would veto the Bill if it ever emerged from the Legislature. The Bill was referred to Committee in 2007 and has never emerged.
October, 2007 - Pennsylvania Bat Ban Looks Like Loser - Click Here For Don't Take My Bat Away Press Release.
Click here for Pennsylvania Bill's Text
Pennsylvania, Sept. 27, 2007 - Pennsylvania Legislature Goes After Metal Bats: See Metal Bat Ban Proposed In PA, CBS3.com, Harrisburg, PA, Sept. 27, 2007 (this story covers House Committee hearings on the Pennsylvania proposed ban).
Pennsylvania - July 11, 2007 - Click here for articles on new Pennsylvania metal bat ban legislation. Metal Bats Under Fire Again by Mark Dent, Bucks County Courier Times, July 11, 2007. Also, see this article from South Williamsport, PA: Lawmakers Study Safety of Metal Bats by Genaro C. Armas, foxnews.com, July 7, 2007.
GENERAL INFORMATION
August 15, 2016 - Can we make wood bats safer? One man says "yes." See Taking Swing At Safer Bats by Jon Saraceno, USA Today, August 15, 2016, page C-1.
August 15, 2016 - Can we make wood bats safer? One man says "yes." See Taking Swing At Safer Bats by Jon Saraceno, USA Today, August 15, 2016, page C-1.