Posted by: Major Dan (markj89@charter.net) on Tue Jan 29 05:06:52 2002

Which baseball bat, wood or aluminum, would send a baseball a greater distance when hit?
> Thank you. My son Malik has a science project discussing this very topic. Can you cite any empirical evidence/test data to support your findings?
> I find it truly amazing that I just discovered batspeed.com tonight.
> Go Red Sox and Ted Williams was the greatest hitter who ever lived.

Glad to hear there are Red Sox fans out there. Go Pats - Superbowl bound!!!!
http://www.ncaa.org/releases/miscellaneous/1999092901ms.htm
is the formal NCAA bat testing protocol.
You'll have to search the web for some more readable stuff. The essense is that exit velocity - how fast a ball comes off a bat for a set swing speed and pitch speed - is the factor that matters. Bats can rebound the ball to create more exit speed which equals distance.

try this site also. this background article is more readable
http://www.webball.com/skill/batsafety.html