Most baseball players want one thing in a baseball bat: a tool to help them knock the ball out of the park. Of course, no bat can, in itself, make you a star hitter. But choosing a bat that is comfortable and suits your style of play is an important step toward performing at your best. A major decision when considering bats is whether to go with wood or aluminum.
Benefits
One advantage of wooden bats is that they are available in myriad shapes and tapers so that you can get an instrument that suits your swing. Another is that they offer a "classic" feel and sound, according to Dick's Sporting Goods. Wooden bats also tend to be cheaper than aluminum bats. But players often like the power they get from aluminum bats, which, according to the baseball equipment information Web site Baseball-bats.net, "can provide more 'pop' of the baseball off the bat." Another benefit of aluminum bats over wooden ones: They do not tend to break.
Types
Maple and ash are the two types of wood generally used for making baseball bats. The realm of aluminum bats is more complicated. They come in an array of different alloys that include metals such as zinc, copper, magnesium, zirconium and scandium. The exact combination of metals affects the bat's weight and durability. Other factors include whether the aluminum bat is of single-layer or double-layer construction and whether the metal has been cryogenically treated--that, is frozen and reheated to yield more durability, less vibration and, according to Dick's Sporting Goods, 2 to 4 percent greater distance when you hit.
Safety
The safety of aluminum bats compared with wooden models has long been an issue in baseball. Because of the power that big-league hitters are capable of generating, Major League Baseball only allows wood in professional games. But since the 1970s, aluminum has "dominated the youth and amateur adult baseball and softball markets," according to Daniel Russell, associate professor of applied physics at Kettering University in Flint, Mich., who has written about the physics and acoustics of baseball bats.
At all levels, there has been talk of banning aluminum bats and permitting wood only, with lawsuits erupting at times. For example, in October 2009, a jury in Montana awarded the family of Brandon Patch $850,000 for the death of the 18-year-old in an American Legion game. The jurors found that the maker of Louisville Slugger bats had not provided sufficient warning of the dangers aluminum bats can pose.
History
Wooden bats ruled the day in baseball's earliest days. In the 1850s, players fashioned all manner of bats, including flat ones, rounded ones and short, long, light and heavy ones. Standardization of bats' dimensions came into effect gradually over the latter half of the 19th century, and although the bats of today are lighter and have thinner handles, the do not look drastically different from those of 1900, according to Baseball-bats.net.
The notion of metal bats emerged as early as 1924, when William Shroyer received a patent for one. But they did not take hold until the 1970s when two companies, Worth and Eaton, began introducing models to the market. Development of aluminum bats has continued throughout the 2000s, with products such as double-walled bats and scandium-aluminum bats appearing in stores.
Theory
Aluminum bats perform better--that is, hit the ball with more force and cause it to travel farther--than wooden ones for several reasons, according to Kettering University's Russell: They can be swung faster; they react in a trampoline-like fashion upon contact with the ball, as opposed to wooden bats, which absorb much of the ball's energy; and they are more forgiving, producing higher balls speeds for impacts away from the "sweet spot"--the place on the barrel that yields the best hits. In all, Russell concluded, a player using an aluminum bat can hit a ball 8 miles per hour faster than with a wooden bat, resulting in more runs.
Member Comments