Posted by: Mike Myers (mike.myers@bellnexxia.com) on Mon Jun 9 08:43:53 2003

Recently Sammy Sosa was caught cheating, I had a conversation with some "Baseball Experts"(never played a day past high school) I was defending the idea that cork doesnt make the ball go farther, just increases batspeed. "The Physics of Baseball" by Robert K. Adair says what im tryin to defend, can anyone send anything that confirms or denys this arguement. A web site, new paper article, anything to help me show my friend that he isnt correct to say corked bats make the ball go further.
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> >Corked bats do make the ball go farther. by pulling out the dense wood in the center of the bat you are lessing the total weight of the bat by several ounces. lighter bat faster bat speed. and we all know what that produces. he was swinging a lighter bat than his fellow players. the rules state that a certain length bat has to weight at least a certain amount. his was dramatically less. faster bat speed.

Many of the "corked bats do not make the ball go farther" experts ignore the fact that a lighter bat simply makes it easier to hit pitches. Thus, if fences are 450', and you can already hit a ball 500', then it makes sense to hit the ball LESS far, say 480', so that you can actually hit MORE pitches for home runs.

Regards,
Mike.