In the early years of baseball, all bats were crafted from wood, and the game did not possess the kind of guidelines for bat construction that exist now. Sluggers were known to drive weights into their bats or carve out hollows and fill them with cork. Today, Major League Baseball still requires its players to use wooden bats, and it has strict guidelines for bat construction. Other leagues have construction and weight guidelines for aluminum and wood bats.
Major League Bat Requirements
The Major League Baseball official rule book specifies that bats must be made no longer than 42 inches and no more than 2 3/4 inches in diameter at their thickest section, known as the barrel. A scoop cut out of the barrel end of no more than 1 inch in depth is permitted, but the scoop may not be filled with any foreign material. These size guidelines provide practical maximum and minimum bat weights, though no weight requirements are themselves listed.
Other League Bat Requirements
Like in the major leagues, other leagues have bat size regulations that provide practical limits on bat weight. All other leagues also require bat length to be no more than 42 inches, though barrel diameter requirements vary. In the Little League, the maximum barrel diameter is 2 1/4 inches, in high school it is 2 5/8 inches, and in PONY and NCAA college baseball, the limit is 2 3/4 inches.
Trends in Bat Weight
In the early days of baseball, players tended to use heavier bats than are popular today. Babe Ruth used 54- and 40-ounce bats, while Ty Cobb and Joe DiMaggio used 42-ounce bats. By the 1960s, many great hitters had started using lighter bats; Ted Williams, Rod Carew and Stan Musial used bats in the 31- to 33-ounce range. Experimentation in the 1960s and 1980s confirmed that the ideal theoretical bat weight is between 15 and 18 ounces, though this is lighter than a wood bat can actually be made. Today bat manufacturers continue to innovate with alternative woods, bamboo and drying techniques to create lighter and stronger bats.
Expressing a Bat's Characteristics
A bat's length and weight can be captured in its "drop." A bat's drop is its weight in ounces subtracted from its length in inches. Thus, a bat that is 4 inches longer than its weight has a drop of 4. A larger drop indicates a light bat for its length which has been built for swing speed. A lower drop indicates a heavier bat for its length which has been built for power. In some leagues the drop formula is reversed, weight minus length, and the resulting drop will be a negative number.
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