Posted by: Doug () on Wed May 14 16:35:23 2003

The 6th episode of Ken Burns baseball documentary shows Ted Williams boneing his bat on what looks like a cowbone clamped to a table in the lockerroom. He also is scoring the handle lengthwise with the sharp edges of a bottlecap to prevent it from rotating in his hands. This episode shows a lot of swings of both Williams and DiMaggio - as well as a lot of closeups of their hand positions. It's worth watching. D

Daniel, Boneing bats is a thing of the past for most players. The bats from 30-40 years ago were unfinished and you could bone them. Most of todays bats are finished and they would just crack the finish if they tried to bone them. Guys used to take an ice pick and grove out the the soft area of the grain and then fill it with resin and then burn the resin until it melted. Then they would sand the barrel and then bone it. The hitting area would be very hard after the shenanigans and it did not look like anyone had tinkered with it.

Doug