Posted by: Chris O'Leary (chris@chrisoleary.com) on Thu May 24 08:05:49 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"

I'm sorry about your son.

The solution to the problem isn't to ban all aluminum bats. It's to ban high-performance aluminum bats.

Aluminum bats can be engineered to only hit the ball as hard as wood bats. That way we get the benefit or their greater durability.

Also, I teach all of my pitchers to finish with their gloves at their glove-side pec (rather than out to the side or behind their back) ala Greg Maddux.