Among the bills that aren't going to make it out of the Legislature this spring is a measure proposing to outlaw aluminum baseball bats. That's good, because the approval of equipment for athletic activities really isn't the state's job.
That said, we'd cheer if every last metal bat were melted down to make beer cans and baseball and softball players went back to putting wood on the ball.
A metal bat goes "toink" when it strikes a ball. "Toink" is a sorry sound, offering none of the satisfaction of a wood bat's crisp "crack."
The only rational argument in favor of metal bats is that they aren't subject to breakage the way wooden bats are, thus are more economical. But the money-saving argument has weakened as the price of latest-generation metal bats has soared. Besides, it would be cheaper to use balls made of rubber, but you don't see leagues sanctioning nonstandard balls, do you?
Metal is to bats what steroids are to the people swinging them. The increasingly high-tech engineering that goes into metal bats makes it easier to swing a bat faster and can cause the ball to fly off the bat faster. Many metal bats are engineered with bigger "sweet spots" than on equivalent wood bats. Metal bats make it possible for mediocre hitters to boost their averages. Making a bat out of metal accomplishes what people believe "corking" a wood bat does. Corked bats are banned from baseball. Metal bats should be, too.
House Bill 588, which died in committee, sought to ban metal bats as a safety hazard. The bill was inspired by the 2003 death of Miles City American Legion player Brandon Patch, who was struck in the head by a sharp line drive off a metal bat during a game against the Helena Senators. Such deaths are rare, but not unheard of around the country. Players have been killed by balls hit with wooden bats, as well as with metal ones. Metal bats are more likely to be involved in batted-ball deaths, but they're also used far more than wood outside the professional leagues. Were the Legislature to pass a law banning metal bats on the basis of safety, it would have to overlook the fact that far more deaths are attributable to other unregulated equipment and products. There are inherent dangers in most sports that can't logically or practically be eliminated through legislation.
That doesn't mean athletic organizations can't regulate their own equipment use. Nothing stands in the way of the leagues that sanction baseball from requiring the use of wooden bats. That's what the House committee that considered HB 588 suggested, and it's something we're in favor of, too. The only metal that belongs on a diamond is on the bottom of the players' shoes and in front of the catcher's face.
And once that's done, we say, let's move onto golf and get rid of the criminally misnamed "woods" made of metal. They're as bad as any metal bat.
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