Posted by: skip (piks5@sbcglobal.net) on Wed May 23 13:10:12 2007

> My son has been hit twice with a ball , both injuries requiring 64 stitches to his mouth and 33 stitches to his right (pitchin) hand.
> Because of increse speed and velocity of the ball when batters use a aluminum bat , along with the shorter distance to the fielder especially the Pitcher, makes using these bats in TeeBall and Little League ( In my opinion) accidents waiting to happen. As we saw in
> Wayne NJ where one player died after being hit in the chest with a ball hit off an aluminum bat. BTW, parent of the next Derek Jeeter, the major's DONT use aluminum bats

Danny,
When my currently 18 and 20 sons pitched on the small diamond, the premium metal bats were much deader than they are now. Anywhere from 3 to 10 homers all spring in the whole league. My 12 u team gave up 4 in one game the other night.
Home runs = greater batted ball speed. My own 12 u son almost got his leg mauled by a line shot the other night. I love coaching travel ball, but one part of me can't wait for the end of it, b/c my pitchers will finally be off the big diamond, where they'll be 60 ft from the batter.
Don't believe the Lies. Youth bats are essentially unregulated. The BPF means virtaully nothing as a predictor of batted ball spds.
What I'm saying is provable fact.
When college and HS somewhat deadened their bats in 2002 (BESR cert), the bat manufacturers set their sights on youth bats. Everybody's enjoying the home run derby: stockholders, players, and parents.....except that unlucky kid pitcher, 40 some odd feet from the batter as he releases, and gets hit in the mug by a techno-shot.
It's a conspiracy of all of us against the few unlucky ones who draw a bad card. So we let it. contiunue.
Hottest bat by FAR: Anderson techzilla XP. Go to their web site, click on testimonials, click on the logo on the lower right, there's about 50 testimonials from thrilled dads whose scrawny 10 yr olds are hitting titanic shots. These things are tennis rackets. And every home run represents maximum batted ball speed...if the ball had been hit a little differently, but with the same speed, it might have taken out another youth pitcher.
The best one-source issue on this is www.gc-aa.com/woodbat2.htm

Where it says that LL requires "specifications of metal bats be similar to wood bats have negated any safey issues," that's a flat out lie. A lie. Not a mistatement, a lie. And leagues around the country are formulating policy based on this lie. Skip

Webmaster, if I can't say the above, please edit it, or can this, and I'll write a version with a softer word than lie. Thanks,