What I am referring to is the proliferation of Maple baseball bats in professional baseball over the last 10 years.
Previously ash had been the defualt wood for baseball bats. The wood was light, but not too light, and durable at the same time.
Barry Bonds is often credited with faciliting the transfer from ash to maple. It was with a maple bat that he hit his 73 home runs in 2001. After that the rates skyrocketed to the point that from my naked eye observation it seems that the vast majority of players are now using maple.
They cite its combination of light weight and hard wood as the reason. Players swear by maple.
The trouble is that when a maple bat breaks it snaps in two sending a tumbling spear arching through the infield. I'm talking sharp here, scary sharp. Ash bats chipped, and you could perform tests on the bat at home plate to determine whether or not a break had occurred. Maple, on the other hand, gives a hitter no indication that his bat may be broken, except for the shrapnel flying in all directions after his bat EXPLODES.
I get quesy just thinking about one of those bats sticking into someone. There is no question that serious injury or death could be the result.
In the past two years bat breakage rates and injuries from schards of wood have caused the mlb to look into banning these bats. I happen to think it's the next logical move.
Baseball at breaking point.
Maple Bat Backlash.
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