Safety of Aluminum Bats Is Being Discussed Again

Bill Kalant never had a chance to get out of the way of the baseball that put him, as doctors told his father, “on the cliff of death.”

Kalant’s parents, sitting a few feet away at a game in late April, heard the familiar ping of a ball hitting a metal bat, then an instant later a sickening thud, but never caught a glimpse of the ball. It was more the position of Kalant’s body — still bent over from throwing a pitch, his glove still near the ground — than what they had seen that led coaches to conclude they had never witnessed a ball hit so hard.

Moments later, Kalant, a 16-year-old sophomore pitcher at Oak Lawn High School in Illinois, lost consciousness. Like that, even before he came out of a coma two weeks later, he was thrust into an emotional debate over the use of aluminum bats.

At issue is whether aluminum bats have made the game unnecessarily dangerous. On one side are those who say balls fly off the bats much faster than they do wood bats and have led to severe injuries and, in a handful of cases, death. On the other are those who say balls travel no faster off aluminum bats and that there is no evidence they put players at greater risk of injury.

In a recent case in Wayne, N.J., Steven Domalewski, a 12-year-old pitcher, collapsed Tuesday night after being hit by a line drive. Steven is in an induced coma at a local hospital.

Around the country, after decades of using aluminum bats, a small but growing number of college and high school leagues are switching to wood bats. Beginning next season in North Dakota, every high school team will use wood bats — a move officials say was prompted by discussions that started when a Montana high school student was killed three years ago.

In Illinois, where Kalant was injured and a college pitcher sustained a fractured skull last year, the state high school association hopes to put wood bats in the hands of players in several conferences next year to study injuries, run production and costs. And in Chicago, the coordinator of the public school district’s high school league said he has seen enough of aluminum bats and wants to switch to wood as soon as possible.

“These aluminum bats have been nothing but bad for baseball,” Eddie Curry, who oversees Chicago’s public school league, said. “Some of these kids are afraid stiff of line drives coming back to them, afraid of playing baseball because of aluminum bats.”

There is no question metal bats have changed the game. Batting averages are higher and there are more home runs in games in which aluminum bats are used.

As an example, in 31 conference games using wood bats this season, Franklin Pierce College in New Hampshire hit 10 home runs, compared with 52 homers in 29 nonconference games using aluminum bats.

“The bats, they’re trampolines,” Coach Jayson King said. “The ball jumps off the bat.”

It is the same story in the Great Lakes Valley Conference, a Division II college conference that switched to wood bats in 1998.

“In 1980 with aluminum bats, we had 104 home runs; this year the most home runs in our conference was 14,” Irish O’Reilly, the coach at Lewis University outside Chicago, said.

“If your team is using wood and their team is using aluminum, you can’t beat them,” he said. “It’s like David versus Goliath.”

A big reason is that aluminum bats have larger sweet spots than wood bats. That means the area on bats that will produce hard-hit balls is much bigger on aluminum bats. So, while it might not be any easier to hit the ball, when players connect it is more likely they will be hitting the ball harder.

In fact, Curry said part of what is driving his push for wood bats is that he thinks they improve players’ batting skills — a sentiment shared by many coaches. He also says using the bats gives players a better chance of making it to professional baseball, which still uses only wood bats.

But are the line drives off aluminum bats traveling faster than line drives off wood bats? And are these bats making baseball more dangerous?

The answer to the first question, say bat makers and others, is they used to travel faster but do not anymore. After the 1998 College World Series, in which Southern California beat Arizona State, 21-14, the N.C.A.A. took some of the pop out of the bats by setting a 97-mile-an-hour speed limit at which the ball can come off the bat.

The second question is tougher to answer. Even though aluminum bats have been around since the 1970’s, there is scant evidence one way or the other about whether they have added danger to the game.

For starters, statistics, particularly on the high school level, on batted-ball injuries are hard to come by because, officials say, there is not an adequate injury reporting system.

Further, what statistics are available are incomplete. The United States Consumer Product Safety Commission found that from 1991 to 2001 there were 17 players killed by batted balls. But while eight involved metal bats and two involved wood bats, in seven instances the kind of bat was not known.

With the pending switch to wood bats in North Dakota, and a study under way comparing injuries among college players using aluminum bats and those playing in wood bat summer leagues, there is hope for some scientific data.

Today, Bill Kalant still moves slowly and his gait is somewhat stiff. He had to relearn everything from how to walk to how to tie his shoes.

Of his injury, he simply said, “It’s part of the game,” and he does not see any reason to switch to wood bats.

His father, Tony, though not a vocal critic of aluminum bats, said: “I wouldn’t want this to happen to anybody else. In my heart I think I’d rather see them go back to the wood bats.”

Source: The New York Times