Ping! Ping! Ping!

No, these are not the sounds of a construction site or a metal refinery. They’re heard on of a baseball field, and before the 2012 season, these were the sounds of every ball coming off the bats on almost every Little League, high school, and college field in the country, save for a few exceptions. The “crack of the bat,” a sound as emblematic of baseball as the green grass and brown dirt it’s played on, remains absent in a wide majority of leagues throughout the country. But recently, new bat regulations that have been adopted by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS), and various state high school activities associations have further ensured the players’ safety on the field and taken a small step in restoring the purity of America’s pastime in amateur ball—effectively turning the screeching ping into more of a pop.

Though the sound of metal bats has been one factor in bringing out the ire of baseball purists, the danger posed to defensive players was even more significant in the push for changes to bat standards. On average, the reaction time for a pitcher, standing as close as 54 feet from the point of contact after his release, is about 0.04 seconds, while a fielder has about 0.07 seconds to react to the same ball, which is hit an average of 92.5 miles per hour with an aluminum bat, according the James Sherwood of the Baseball Research Center at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. Balls hit with composite-barrel bats—constructed with an aluminum exterior, but a graphite-fiber or comparable interior—and other bats developed with modern technology pose an even greater danger, as similar research has shown that these bats increase the ball exit speed by 10 to 15 miles per hour.

In 1999, after a record-setting year in terms of offensive production numbers in 1998, the NCAA established the Ball Exit Speed Ratio (BESR) standard, which essentially made certain that the velocity with which the ball traveled off the bat would be no more than 97 miles per hour. However, in the summer of 2009, the Baseball Rules Committee proposed moving to a new standard for bats.

“The bats that were being used were able to be manipulated and altered in some way to increase their performance way more than what was originally set aside, because alterations could increase their speed of leaving the bat by five miles per hour and increase their distance from 20 to 40 feet,” said Cameron Schuh, Associate Director for Public and Media Relations for the NCAA. “[What prompted the change] was ensuring the safety of the student-athletes as well as maintaining the integrity of the game.”

After placing a moratorium on composite bats before the 2009 season, the committee then set forth a new standard called the Batted Ball Coefficient of Restitution (BBCOR) for the 2011 season. This new equation is much more comprehensive and expands upon its BESR counterpart, which simply measures the exit speed of the ball, but not the trampoline effect of the bat.

The implementation of the new standard saw dramatic reductions in offensive statistics across the board, including batting average, runs scored, and home runs. However, sacrifice bunts increased on average by 11.7 bunts per team among the top ten Division I teams in the category—a representation of the growth of “small ball.” Collegiate baseball also saw a return to the fundamentals of the game, notably sound defense, as fielding percentage reached its all-time high in 2011, the first year under the BBCOR standard.

This has even has had an impact on the recruiting approach of college coaches, as they have stopped looking solely for power hitters, and now put a greater emphasis on finding the ideal five-tool player—one who can hit for power and average, who can run the bases well, who has a strong throwing arm, and who has exceptional fielding abilities.

“Coaches are now doing a lot more looking for that utility fielder, the quickness, the instincts,” Schuh said.

But many are still unsatisfied with the NCAA’s decision and insist that instituting a wood bat-only policy would be the best way to protect student-athletes and emulate the pros. According to the research of Daniel Russell of Kettering University, the exit speed of a ball off of a composite metal bat is 0.02 seconds faster than that off of a wood bat, which is one-fifth of the time that it takes an average person to blink, Ultimately, for Division I baseball, the decision was a matter of economics and practicality.

Schuh said, “Schools have agreements in place with bat manufacturers, so they need to be able to maintain those relationships. Everyone was most comfortable with a standard that ensured that the metal bats being produced performed as close to wood, without having the concern about breaking like wood bats do.”

A year after the NCAA instituted their BBCOR standard, the NFHS followed suit and implemented the same standard for all high school leagues in the United States.

“Economically, to go to an all wood standard and basically get rid of any of the non-wood bats that are out there now—that would probably be too great a burden on the schools, and that right now, we know that wood bats break maybe at an alarming rate. Especially in Major League Baseball, bats are splintering and that becomes a safety factor,” Larry White, Assistant Director of the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association and Chairman of the National Rules Committee of the NFHS, said.

At the 2012 NFHS Baseball Rules Committee Meeting, representatives from all eight regions had positive feedback on the standard’s first year of existence in high school play. Expectedly, judging by the NCAA’s first year with BBCOR, runs were down and games even moved a lot quicker.
“One of the major tenets of writing rules for the NFHS is risk minimization, obviously meaning the safety factor. We like to keep the balance between offense and defense within a certain range […] and also to uphold the tradition of the game,” White said.

However, in 2007, the North Dakota High School Activities Association (NDHSAA) became the first state association to ban the use of metal bats in high school play. The biggest reason behind the change was the weather and climate of North Dakota.

“In 2007, the average temperature for baseball games in North Dakota was 51˚ and every year, bat companies seem to make their walls [of the bat] thinner to increase performance, but the denting and breaking factor had become a real concern,” said Matthew Fetsch, Assistant to the Executive Secretary of the NDHSAA.

At the time, the NDHSAA was hesitant to make safety their main reason for pushing for the new standard because there wasn’t any research that sufficiently proved that the metal bats were more dangerous than wood.

Shortly thereafter, in September 2007, New York City instituted its ban on non-wood bats in high schools after a long battle in its City Council. The issue was brought to the table just six months after 12-year-old pitcher Steven Domalewski was struck in the chest by a ball that was hit by a metal bat, went into cardiac arrest, and suffered brain damage from a loss of oxygen to his brain. The City Council approved the bill by a 40-6 vote on March 14, 2007, but it faced a roadblock when Mayor Michael Bloomberg vetoed it because of the lack of evidence and research supporting the idea that wood bats were safer than metal bats, instead proposing that individual leagues be responsible for setting their own bat regulations. However, the mayor’s veto was overridden on April 23, 2007, by a 41-4 vote.

At the time, coach John Carlesi was entering his second year with the Stuyvesant Hitmen, after coming off of an 8-8 season in which the team was just able to secure a playoff berth.

“I loved [the change] because since I’ve been at Stuyvesant, we haven’t had real top-notch power hitters—we had mostly spray hitters. So it really didn’t affect our team’s strategy that much—it really leveled out the playing field,” Carlesi said.

“The biggest thing was not mostly with us, but the coaches at the other schools thought that the [new rule] would hurt their kids’ chances at getting scholarships because the rest of the country was using metal and their batting averages were inflated compared to the wood bats,” he said.
The Hitmen have had first-hand experiences with the differences between hitting with wood and metal bats, as they travel down to Port Saint Lucie, Florida, yearly during their Spring Break to practice and play exhibition games against teams from other states. Junior Charlie Kramer was hit by a line drive off of a metal bat while pitching during a game on April 9, 2012.

“I had no time to react or get a glove up, and the ball hit me right in the hand. With a metal bat, the ball can be hit so fast at you that you don’t have a chance to react. It’s absolutely necessary that we shouldn’t use metal bats because it’s putting players in danger,” Kramer said. “Balls that would usually be outs for us when their hitters don’t get good contact just seem to jump off the bat and travel a lot farther and turn into hits.”

Most recently, beginning with the 2012 season, the South Dakota High School Baseball Association (SDHSBA) became the second state to institute a wood bat standard.

“With the NCAA making the change from metal to BBCOR bats, we felt in South Dakota that we needed to make a change to stay consistent with what they were doing in college. We had great success this year and I would assume that we are going to continue to use wood bats in the near future,” said Chris Janisch, member of the Board of Directors of the SDHSBA and coach of the Washington Warriors of Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
The board considered both BBCOR and wood options, but after factoring in cost, safety, and other arguments from baseball purists, decided to go with wood.

“Basically, taking baseball back to where I think it’s played at a higher level. To us, when we were debating this, having a sweet spot that was the size of a pop can compared to the size of an egg—you’re going to be a much better hitter if you have the sweet spot the size of an egg,” Mike McCulley, coach of Rapid City Central in Rapid City, South Dakota said.

Though in South Dakota, the first year of only using wood bats was successful, it saw drops in batting average, hits, home runs, RBIs, and other offensive stats that had previously gotten blown up. The SDHSBA along with the NDHSAA face a battle ahead in trying to retain the states with a high school wood standard in the country.

With the outside pressures from the alternate success of BBCOR in the collegiate game and in local American Legion programs, McCulley said, “It’s going to be a tough road for us. I would love to see it go back to wood throughout. If they’re using them in the pros, why not have [the players] come with them the whole way.”

Source: National Collegiate Athletic Association

Source: South Dakota High School Baseball Association