RELATED SEARCHES
Sponsored Wood Baseball Bats Results:
Wood Baseball Bats: History, Beech, Hickory And Maple Wood
By:
Published: December 15, 2006
Look inside the locker or peek at the equipment rack of any professional baseball player today and you are sure to find an array of wood baseball bats; they are to the athlete what a hammer is to a carpenter or a scalpel is to a doctor. Accordingly, professional baseball players take great care in selecting the bats they will use and each bat is designed to meet the strength and swing style of each individual player.
The wood baseball bats swung by today's professional stars are not the same as the ones used by the game's founding fathers. Before 1889, when the size and shape of baseball bats became regulated for the first time, players did whatever they could to fashion a bat they could succeed with. Some players used long, heavy, flat bats; others preferred ones short, light and round bats. In these olden days of baseball, players most often made their bats out of hickory wood, though at the time ash was another popular choice.
The only real consistency to their pre-1889 madness? All bats were wood baseball bats, a trait quickly evolving into the regulations of baseball which still exist today. For this reason, baseball purists often believe college and other amateur baseball leagues – where aluminum and other metal alloy bats commonly are used – ought to align more with the history and tradition of the game. To these purists, hearing the crack of wood baseball bats when they make contact with the ball is synonymous with the game itself.
Players most often judge what bat they will use on three initial criterion:
1. Handle fracture
2. Barrel fracture
3. Barrel grain flaking.
A wood baseball bat with a 2.5 barrel – a dimension in line with baseball's regulations – can have anywhere from seven to 50 grains, with professional players' preferences often between 13 and 20 grains. A well-chosen bat will provide just enough density to match the player's strength while providing just enough durability to maximize the bat's performance.
To help choose between different materials for their wood baseball bat, a player further chooses from several other important material characteristics: strength, stiffness, density and hardness. Studies have proven why ash and hickory are among the most common wood baseball bats; their strength-to-weight ratios place them above the others.
As pitchers have perfected their craft even more, hitters have demonstrated a preference for the lighter, lower specific gravity of ash wood baseball bats (and thus better bat control) over the higher barrel integrity, but heavier, nature of hickory wood baseball bats.
Though ash is the type of wood most often used to construct professional wood baseball bats today, beech wood, hickory and laminated bamboo also get used at times. In 2001, Barry Bonds of the San Francisco Giants popularized use of the maple wood bat when he used it to set the single-season homerun record. Since then, more players are giving maple wood baseball bats a chance.
Sources:
Baseball Bat History. Baseball Bats Net. 2005. 13 December 2006.
<http://baseball-bats.net/baseball-bats/baseb all-bat-history/index.html.>
Baseball Bat Materials. Baseball Bats.net. 2004. 13 December 2006.
<http://www.baseball-bats.net/baseball-bats/b aseball-bat-materials/index.html.>
Fallon, Lawrence P., PE and James A. Sherwood, Ph.D., PE. A Study of the Barrel Constructions of Baseball Bats. University of Massachusetts. 13 December 2006. <http://www.kettering.edu/~drussell/powerpoint/ Fallon-Sherwood.pdf.>
Related Articles
The wood baseball bats swung by today's professional stars are not the same as the ones used by the game's founding fathers. Before 1889, when the size and shape of baseball bats became regulated for the first time, players did whatever they could to fashion a bat they could succeed with. Some players used long, heavy, flat bats; others preferred ones short, light and round bats. In these olden days of baseball, players most often made their bats out of hickory wood, though at the time ash was another popular choice.
The only real consistency to their pre-1889 madness? All bats were wood baseball bats, a trait quickly evolving into the regulations of baseball which still exist today. For this reason, baseball purists often believe college and other amateur baseball leagues – where aluminum and other metal alloy bats commonly are used – ought to align more with the history and tradition of the game. To these purists, hearing the crack of wood baseball bats when they make contact with the ball is synonymous with the game itself.
Players most often judge what bat they will use on three initial criterion:
1. Handle fracture
2. Barrel fracture
3. Barrel grain flaking.
A wood baseball bat with a 2.5 barrel – a dimension in line with baseball's regulations – can have anywhere from seven to 50 grains, with professional players' preferences often between 13 and 20 grains. A well-chosen bat will provide just enough density to match the player's strength while providing just enough durability to maximize the bat's performance.
To help choose between different materials for their wood baseball bat, a player further chooses from several other important material characteristics: strength, stiffness, density and hardness. Studies have proven why ash and hickory are among the most common wood baseball bats; their strength-to-weight ratios place them above the others.
As pitchers have perfected their craft even more, hitters have demonstrated a preference for the lighter, lower specific gravity of ash wood baseball bats (and thus better bat control) over the higher barrel integrity, but heavier, nature of hickory wood baseball bats.
Though ash is the type of wood most often used to construct professional wood baseball bats today, beech wood, hickory and laminated bamboo also get used at times. In 2001, Barry Bonds of the San Francisco Giants popularized use of the maple wood bat when he used it to set the single-season homerun record. Since then, more players are giving maple wood baseball bats a chance.
Sources:
Baseball Bat History. Baseball Bats Net. 2005. 13 December 2006.
<http://baseball-bats.net/baseball-bats/baseb all-bat-history/index.html.>
Baseball Bat Materials. Baseball Bats.net. 2004. 13 December 2006.
<http://www.baseball-bats.net/baseball-bats/b aseball-bat-materials/index.html.>
Fallon, Lawrence P., PE and James A. Sherwood, Ph.D., PE. A Study of the Barrel Constructions of Baseball Bats. University of Massachusetts. 13 December 2006. <http://www.kettering.edu/~drussell/powerpoint/ Fallon-Sherwood.pdf.>
Featured Wood Baseball Bats Products:
