Wooden Bats and Their Wood
by One won lost won on Apr 3, 2007 12:43 PM PDT
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PrintAnyone know how bats get certified for Major League usage? I've read snippets here and there. Apparently B. Bonds has one guy do his maple bats, and this guy is swamped. But it is one guy.
California has a woody plant, Arctostaphylos, that would be great for baseball bats. It won't fracture on impact with a baseball, if treated. However, if you cut down a growing Arctostaphylos, it will split and crack if you do not immediately give it (an obscure) treatment.
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Arctostaphylos:
Arctostaphylos uva ursi. Uva Arctostaphylos ursi, acer glabrum: cornus stolininfera prunus virginia.
-Nick Swisher
Pesuedotsuga
menziesii poa Poppy! Poa Poppy! Poa Poppy!
Abies lasiocarpa.
-Nick Swisher
Pseudotsuga!?? Too common!
Pinus Lambertiana. Now there is a sweet tree.
Beautiful wood. "They cut them all down around here. Five feet in diameter, and round as a silver dollar. All gone now, made into doors and fruit boxes."
Pioneer reminisce, El Dorado County.
by One won lost won on Apr 3, 2007 3:36 PM PDT up reply actions
Had to look up taht one
(I took botany classes in the NW). But...I know sugar pines quite well. Magnificent trees, supposedly the tallest pines.
-Nick Swisher
Aka Manzanita
Not sure if it generally grows straight enough to make bats. It's not exactly treeish.
straight enough is not the issue
I can get you plenty of manzanita wood that exceeds the MLB maximum length and bat diameter. And plenty straight enough to put on a lathe, and turn a bat.
The problem really is, that Manzanita is loaded, and I mean loaded, with internal stresses that make it crack.
I do not propose "cracked bats", but even a cracked "bat" I have of the stuff, can still hit a baseball repeatedly and remain intact.
I just reached over and touched a 8-inch piece I keep on my desk...three years old, and only a hairline crack on one end. It is "treated".
by One won lost won on Apr 3, 2007 1:22 PM PDT up reply actions
Ever burn the stuff?
It basically explodes when it burns, great for campfires.
by BlameChannel53 on Apr 3, 2007 2:02 PM PDT up reply actions
I used to burn a lot of it
Very high heat.
Explosions are trapped water. Even when "dry" by all appearances, there is enough moisture trapped inside to cause a steam explosion (sometimes).
by One won lost won on Apr 3, 2007 3:18 PM PDT up reply actions
4th paragraph, 1st sentence, opening phrase
Far too much personal information, 1WLW.
One track mind!
and, it's a "dirt track"!
Haha, good pick.
by One won lost won on Apr 3, 2007 8:37 PM PDT up reply actions
Bonds gets his bats from a company in Canada.
His are Canadian maple. He apparently bought stock in the company to keep it afloat, as the guys running the show are financially... um... retarded.
There are no MLB rules about wood type
as best I can tell, just that the bat must be from a single piece of solid wood. However, bat makers must be pre-certified by MLB before their products can be game used. A few years back a woodcarver named Sam Holman realized that maple bats would break less often than the commonly used ash bats (as ultra-thin handles have become more popular, bat breaking had become epidemic).
The "Sam bats" have become very popular with players who believe them to impart more thwack (the scientific term) into the ball. And they definitely break less and thus last longer. However, when they do break they tend to explode into shards, leading some to deem them unsafe.
A short recap of the Sam Bat story.
exploding into shards
A lot of wood is capable of shattering, especially when you cut a blank in a "quarter-sawn" profile. The grain is asymmetric.
There is little "old growth" ash, maple, etc. available. Second growth is much weaker, and more the cause of shattered bats than thin handles.
Goodman won the AL batting title in 1950. Used ONE BAT the entire season.
by One won lost won on Apr 3, 2007 3:22 PM PDT up reply actions
Thanks for the link to Sam Bat
I don't think I'll go into production like Sam Bat did. I would not mind making 20-200, but that's about it.
Special deal for ANers if they ever get to MLB.
Sam mentioned something about his machining versus "big production" machining of bats. That well may be the reason for a lot of breaking bats, combined with the thin handles. For speed of production, they are probably taking off too much material too fast, and inducing a lot of micro-fractures up and down the work piece.
hmmmmmm
by One won lost won on Apr 3, 2007 3:32 PM PDT up reply actions
Ah... a subject I can sink my teeth into
MLB's official stance is that the wood used in any bat must be from a tree. Other than that, the only rules are the length, diameter, and the 'no coring, no boring, no stuffing super balls in it', etc. A few other minor rules like the cupping of the end of the bat as well as logo size (I LOVED those old Rickey Henderson Sluggers with the word Louisville in giant letters!) are all that govern what a batter brings to the plate.
By the way, I live in Louisville, KY. Home of the best bats in the world.
by bzn5150 on Apr 4, 2007 8:19 AM PDT reply actions
Wood from a tree and not bamboo??
Tree trunk and not a tree branch?
In Biology, there is a particular definition of "wood" versus other fibrous forms of plant matter. I don't think anyone cares whether its a Banzi pine tree or a dwarf ash, as long as it is some form of "wood" and not laminated.
It's true, Louisville Sluggers, Hillerich and Bradsby, that is the original and best source of bats.
by One won lost won on Apr 4, 2007 9:01 PM PDT up reply actions
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