Your complete guide to baseball bats
Baseball bats made from top-grade North American ash may become a thing of the past unless experts find a way to beat back an invading force from Asia. The emerald ash borer is an Asian beetle that feeds on ash trees and may drive them to extinction. The emerald ash […]
Bat safety is a hot topic in the news these days – now we’re hearing about a move by the California Interscholastic Federation to require the use of less-powerful metal bats for the 2011 season. The new BBCOR performance standards mean that metal bats can be no more powerful than […]
Jesse LaCasse, a 30-year-old currently playing professional baseball in Germany, started making bats in 2006, using high quality beechwood and setting up shop with a lathe and a handful of custom orders. Now Subway is giving him a boost by highlighting LaCasse Bats in the 2010 Senior League World Series. […]
Just last week, we blogged about how dangerous broken bats can be – for players, coaches, officials and fans. So we weren’t too surprised to see this article in the news about a man who was hit in the face by a broken bat at a Mets game a few […]
In a widely anticipated move, the National Federation of State High School Associations enacted a rule banning the use of composite bats in high school baseball effective from the start of the 2010-11 school year. They have, however, left some wiggle room, as the NFHS may consider waivers or modifications […]
Figuring out what to do when your playing days are over is a big deal for most professional athletes. Javy Lopez, one of the Atlanta Braves all-time fan favorites, is no exception. When Javy retired, he started his own bat company – Bones Bats – and he’s keeping himself busy […]
What’s the difference between reinventing the wheel and building a better mousetrap? The former is a pointless exercise, and the latter is, well, basically what a New Jersey man has done by creating a revolutionary new wood composite bat that’s shatterproof. MLB isn’t convinced, but we think these durable bats […]
The Mets caught a break when newly-crowned Miss USA Rima Fakih stopped by Citi Field before a game last Thursday. She posed for photos, chatted with players and took a few swings before the Mets took the field to face the Phillies. Rima, a long-time Met fan, brought the Mets […]
Interesting article by Ken Belson at The New York Times website about the bat-making industry. The story focuses on BWP Bats, a up-and-coming player in the industry that specializes in maple bats it manufactures from wood it harvests from its own forests and runs through its own mills. There’s a lot of inside info […]
Had you already heard about the response Vernon Wells had for a bunch of hecklers at the beginning of this month? After enough innings of shouts and jeers, the story goes, Wells tossed a ball up to the stands, with a handwritten message: “Here’s your ball, now please tell me what gas […]