Posted by: Doug () on Tue Jun 17 17:26:55 2003

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> > > > > > > Come on thejuice, MLB won't change their underwear for weeks if they start winning games or go on a hitting streak. They will do almost anything that they think gives them an advantage. Confidence is the biggest issue in sports. If you have it you play well. If you don't you play bad. Players will do anything they THINK will help them. It's all a mental thing. A cork will give some players extra confidence, which will help them play better.
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> > > > > > Points well taken X, you are right, but do you honestly believe that corking a bat does NOTHING to help a player. i just dont see where the idea that it would help came from in the first place if it never had a positive effect to begin with. People dont just pick up cork and decide that it will make them better. at some point in baseball history corking a bat had to have helped somone hit the ball better or else these players never would have gotten the idea that corked bats help to begin with.
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> > > > > I've used an aluminum bat all my life, so all I can go on is what I have heard. You may be right. At some point in history it might have helped someone hit better. After all, it should increase batspeed. But then again, boneing bats used to help also (as this board knows:-)). Back then, bats weren't made to the exact precision that they are today. It could have helped someone. But did the CORK really help that person Or was it a false sense of confidence created by the cork?? Did the cork itself provide the results or did the cork provide the confidence which in turn provided the results IN SPITE of the cork??? I tend to believe the latter, especially with our modern science backing it up.
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> > > > The cork does not provide anything except to keep the hollow sound from happening. The hole drilled can knock out two oz's of weight, and that difference can provide more bat speed, just like the light aluminum bats. Boneing is helpful on an unfinished bat to make it a little harder and keep it from chipping and flaking.Dr Adair has given his opinion, and I have done my own tests with players. A good cork job will provide extra distance, because you can swing the bat faster due to it weighing less.
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> > > > Doug
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> > > I know the cork itself does nothing. But when I said cork, I meant the corked bat. So does the corked bat provide the results, or does the false confidence create the results?
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> > > I'd be interested to know how you did your "own tests with players". What methods did you use? I'm not trying to say your results are bad. But I still contend that any kind of increase in results is due to the false confidence created from using a corked bat. And it would take a very detailed experiment to try to prove this. You would have to have players hit with regular bats and corked bats, but not tell them which one they are using. You would have to keep them "in the dark" to test their mental approach. That's why I am wondering about your testing methods.
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> > X, Would you agree that you can swing a 34" 31oz bat faster than a 34" 33oz bat. Have you ever tried a corked bat yourself? The experiment was done during a regular season with 4 players taking BP every day.
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> > Doug
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> No, I've never used a corked bat. In fact I've never used (regularly) a wood bat. I've used aluminum all my life and now this summer the league is having us use Brett bats (composite).
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> I would have to say that a person should swing a 31oz bat faster than a 33oz bat. That is the basic premise that corked bats were built on. Corked bat = less wieght = greater batspeed = hit ball farther. But according to Prof. Adair and some others, the increase in batspeed is off set by something (I have forgotten but I believe it had something to do with the density of the bat). If density is the issue, you would have to agree that a more dense bat hits a ball farther than a less dense bat.
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> As far as your experiment, did the players know when they were using a corked bat and when they were using a regular bat? That is what I'm talking about. You have to take out the "false confidence" issue to know if the corked bat is actually the one producing the results. And 4 players isn't bad, but to really get a good experiment you would need 100 or more players (just some scientific stuff for you).

X, The four hitters that used the corked bat were four more than Adair used. If you want to try it, buy 2 bats of the same length and weight and drill out 2oz from one of them an try it yourself. Is a wood bat with a 1/2 inch hole drilled in it more dense than an aluminum bat that is filled with air? The players knew they were using cork, and they lost a lot of good baseballs that year. You mention "scientific stuff". Who says you need 100 players to find out if a ball goes longer when you cork a bat? One guy who hit balls to the warning track and 2-3 rows deep, who now hits balls 8-10 rows deep has all the scientific info he needs to go out and invest in a drill.

Doug