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Wood Grain Standards Will Dramatically Reduce Baseball Bat Shattering
Manufacturers must certify that the slope of wood grain meets tough standards
Doug Smock, Contributing Editor -- Design News, December 16, 2008
You've heard of the much-discussed "auto czar" in connection with the auto bailout. Now, there may be a bat czar for major league baseball. One of the victims will be bats totally covered in paint, such as those used by slugger Manny Ramirez.
New rules establish strict guidelines on wood grain in an effort to dramatically reduce broken and shattered bats that have threatened players and fans sitting in the stands.
Most significantly, producers must certify that bats have an acceptable slope of grain. Tests at the Baseball Research Center at the University of Massachusetts-Lowell determined shattered bats often had a slope of grain that ran close to diagonal to the bat. Bats are the strongest when the slope of grain runs as parallel as possible to the shape of the bat.
James A. Sherwood, professor of mechanical engineering and director of the Baseball Research Center at UMass Lowell, predicts there will be a "90-percent reduction in the number of bats that break into multiple pieces" as a result of the new rules on slope of grain.
Thirty-two sanctioned manufacturers must comply with the new system effective immediately. Bats arriving at the 30 Major League parks will be examined and certified before they can be used by players. Nine recommendations were presented last month to baseball's Safety and Health Advisory Committee by the Baseball Research Center and other experts. All the recommendations were accepted by the panel and were announced at the MLB winter meetings, which are making more news in connection with potential free agent signings ranging from slugger Mark Teixeira to pitcher A.J. Burnett.
Don Fehr, the executive director of the players' union, says "I'm not only pleased, but I'm actually proud of the work that's been done." The safety committee was established under collective bargaining as part of the current Basic Agreement. MLB Commissioner Bud Selig directed the committee to tackle the escalating problem of shattered maple bats. They were told to even consider the potential banning of maple bats from league play. That didn't happen. Between July and September of 2008, more than 2,200 bats shattered in major league play.
The problem escalated due to a dramatic increase in the use of maple bats. "After Barry Bonds broke the Major League home run record using a maple bat, many other players hoped that the same magic would work for them," says Sherwood. "The problem is that it's hard to grade maple as compared to ash."
The nine recommendations are as follows:
1. All bats must meet specific slope-of-grain wood-grading requirements that apply to the two-thirds length of the bat that constitutes the handle and tapered regions.
2. All manufacturers must place an ink dot on the face of the handle of sugar maple and yellow birch bats to allow easy viewing of the slope of grain of the wood. Sherwood says the flow of the ink allows a quick inspection of the capillary formation of the wood grain.
3. The orientation of the hitting surface on sugar maple and maple bats must be rotated 90 degrees (one-quarter turn of the bat). The edge grain in maple that is currently used as the hitting surface is the weaker of the two. The manufacturers must rotate the logos they place on these bats by 90 degrees.
4. Handles of sugar maple and yellow birch bats must be natural or have a clear finish to allow for grain inspection.
5. Manufacturers must apply serial numbers to each bat or use some other method of tracking each bat they supply. This is a well-known quality-tracking measure in the industry.
6. Bat manufacturers are required to participate in an MLB-sponsored workshop on the engineering properties and grading practices of wood as they relate to baseball bats.
7. MLB representatives will regularly visit manufacturers to
check on the procedures.
8. Audits will be conducted
randomly to monitor implementation of the procedures.
9. A third-party bat certification and quality control program will be established to certify new suppliers, approve new species of wood, provide training and education to bat manufactures and address issues of non-compliance.
The program will be funded through a higher administration fee that must be paid by companies that manufacture bats. Fees will rise from $5,000 to $10,000. So far, the research project has cost MLB approximately $500,000. Part of the motivation for the project has been financial. Liability insurance requirements for possible injuries caused by a shattered bat have risen from $5 million to $10 million an incident.
On April 25 at Dodger Stadium, a shattered barrel of a bat spun into the stands, breaking a woman's jaw. Also in April, Pirates coach Don Long was struck below the left eye by a bat splinter.
Major League Baseball used consultants other than UMass Lowell to develop the new standards. Other key players included David Kretschmann, a general engineer for the Wisconsin-based USDA Forest Service, the federal government's primary research facility for wood products, and Dr. Carl N. Morris, a professor of statistics at Harvard University.
