Wooden Bats Get a Pitch for Safety, Skill

Calvin Forrest bristles at the vibration that ripples down his arm when he hits with an aluminum baseball bat. So perhaps more than any teammate, the Cardozo senior first baseman is looking forward to the Maury Wills Invitational this weekend at Banneker Field in the District.

The event, named after the former Los Angeles Dodger, a Cardozo graduate, is a wood bat affair. When Forrest connects, it will be all crack! and no ping!, just the way he likes it, even though most high school players say they prefer hitting with metal bats.

"Everyone I talk to says, 'Metal -- that's a home run guaranteed,' " Forrest said. "It's not. Professional [players] do just as much damage with wooden bats as players do with metal bats. To me, that shows it really doesn't matter. It all depends on the batter himself."

Forrest, one of several players, coaches and scouts queried about bats last week at the Let's Play Two spring break tournament in Prince William County, might be heartened to know that some parts of the country are packing away their metal ("bats on steroids," their detractors sniff) and going back to wood, a safety measure that could spur changes elsewhere.

As of now, Maryland, the District and Virginia will continue to use metal bats, high school sports officials in those three jurisdictions say. But the argument against metal might be gaining traction, with recent deaths and traumatic injuries blamed on the high-tech metal sticks and their so-called trampoline effect, which makes balls go faster and farther, thanks to their larger "sweet spots," the part of the bat that produces the truest hit. Third basemen and pitchers sometimes have less time to react to a rocket hit at them with aluminum.

North Dakota high schools, in part because of a death of a player in neighboring Montana, have switched to wood. The New York City Council recently approved a similar change; Mayor Michael Bloomberg vetoed the measure, but the council might be able to override his veto. James Oddo, the Republican councilman who championed the New York City ban, recently sent letters to other major cities to encourage them to outlaw metal bats, saying he hopes the nation's largest school system is "the first domino" in a lumber revolution.

A New Jersey assemblyman is sponsoring a bill that would ban metal bats in that state after a 12-year-old was struck in the chest by a batted ball in a youth league game and sustained a major brain injury. Catholic high schools in Massachusetts and a Catholic league on Long Island, N.Y., use only wood bats. Some areas of Illinois are using them this season.

Proponents of aluminum say there is no hard evidence that metal bats result in more injuries than wood bats. They say much of the argument is based on widely reported anecdotal examples.

The durability of metal bats has made them the economic choice for high school baseball -- their affordability was the bats' main selling point upon their arrival in the 1970s. Others say that claim has diminished, with metal bats now costing around $250 and not being as durable as they used to be, and with top-of-the-line maple bats, which go for about a third of the cost, becoming more crack-resistant.

Wood vs. metal is a subject that comes up every year at the National Federation of State High School Associations summer baseball meetings, said Elliot Hopkins, the baseball rules editor for the group. "We want to be able to help minimize any risk in the sport, but we don't have a lot of information," said Hopkins, adding that the federation gets most of its data from the NCAA.

High school players across the country are free to use wood, Hopkins said. But few do because metal is considered so much more hitter-friendly. Aluminum bats do need to meet specifications, most notably the "minus-3 rule," in which a 34-inch bat, for example, can weigh no more than 31 ounces.

Some area teams, like Brentsville in Prince William County, hit with wood bats in practice to improve mechanics at the plate. "Smaller sweet spot," Tigers Coach Brian Knight said, his players taking cuts (with metal) in the batting cage behind him. "You don't get the little Texas leaguers off the handles. You have to really work on putting the barrel of the bat into the ball."