Two years ago, a broken bat came close to killing an umpire and it was then that I predicted somebody was going to actually die before baseball would do something to fix what is an obvious bloody mess waiting to happen. Well, I was partly wrong. They're going to do something, but I can't quite tell what. From ESPN:
Baseball will start testing bats following Tuesday's meeting of a player-management safety committee, but the sport made no decision on the contentious issue of banning maple models.
Oh good. Let's undergo a series of tests.
"I don't know if there's an immediate short-term solution to this because even the data that we do have, it's tough to quantify it," [Met's reliever, Aaron] Heilman said. Only hours after the meeting, plate umpire Brian O'Nora was hit in the head by a shattered piece of Miguel Olivo's broken maple bat, sending blood streaming down his face and forcing him out of Tuesday night's game between Colorado and Kansas City.
I hate how baseball has to "quantify" this kind of stuff. Here's a question for the "quants": Is it ever appropriate for an umpire to leave a pool of blood at home plate?
If the answer is "No", then the quantitative statistic I point at is that the number of umpires leaving bloody pools at home plate is greater than, or equal to, 1 this season.
SOLUTION
If any part of the bat enters the field of play, the batter is called out on interference and base runners must return to the base that they were on at the beginning of the at-bat.
Simple. Effective.
0 recs | 18 comments
How about this rule
If a pitcher breaks your bat, you’re out.
jbox - June 25, 2008
Then instead of corking...
we’ll get players inserting carbon fiber rods down their bats.
pjbno4 - June 25, 2008
That's what she said
jbox - June 25, 2008
Gawd I hope not.
Axion - June 25, 2008
Or this rule change
Leave the bats alone and get rid of that crazy rule about wearing batting helmets.
Jonny Dub - June 25, 2008
Higher frames per second cameras
Super-HD
I want to see shrapnel through grey matter in glorious 1080i endlessly replayed in slow motion at 500 frames per second.
Then, and only then, can we begin to think of such drastic changes. I’m partial to a “Two bats per at-bat” rule. You break two, you’re swinging shards, buddy.
Axion - June 25, 2008
1080i sucks
rule change. All brains and blood must be broadcast in 1080p
Sam (sdsuaztec4) - June 25, 2008
it is not that hard to do a stress test
and figure out what type of wood is stronger
so i don’t know why they just don’t do that and make mlb use the stronger bat
really not that big of a decision for them
C8LIN B - June 25, 2008
What if the baserunner
is impaled by said bat chard? Drops to the ground, bleeding from the thorax. If someone on the team touches him, is HE out?
ABY - June 25, 2008
yes
Sam (sdsuaztec4) - June 25, 2008
I was under the impression that bat tests
were going on nightly, and the results show that they are widow-makers.
The problem is that trees take too long to grow and we’ve already signed up with the bat companies for maples for the next couple years. The bat companies need MLB to survive, and MLB needs them, so MLB can’t just abandon their wares. A complicated symbiosis.
Curtis Granderson blogs about maple bats yesterday.
Axion - June 25, 2008
Aluminum bats
And every team has to make their park dimensions match Petco. No more shattered bats, a lot more of the home runs that many entertainment-starved fans are willing to watch steroid-pumped freaks produce, and maybe, just maybe, the first female major leaguer. No composite bats, though. Those things kill. Also, the pitchers might have to wear Kevlar and a goalie mask.
Boilermaker19 - June 25, 2008
Aluminum bats
would leave us with a dead CY.
Axion - June 25, 2008
Actually, the raw brute strength of Albert Pujols
would probably bend a standard aluminum bat on impact, so he would have to use a heavier bat with thicker walls, greatly reducing the speed of the ball leaving the bat. Also, see my original post about the goalie mask. Also, MLB will never change to aluminum bats, which begs the question “Why don’t they use wooden bats in college?”
Boilermaker19 - June 25, 2008
Tree huggers
And lots of college programs don’t have the money to buy a season’s worth of bats.
Axion - June 25, 2008
Face Masks for pitchers
Long overdue. Pitchers should look like goalies out there. Hockey Suit!
Wonko - June 25, 2008
I totally agree with Wonko
I TOTALLY AGREE WITH WONKOOOOOOOOO
Dex - June 25, 2008
Somebody get that on tape!
Wonko - June 25, 2008
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