Rubber Band Theory.

Whenever kids have trouble understanding the concept of "separation" at the plate, it always helps me to use the Rubber Band analogy.

If you were to take a Rubber Band and barely pull it back, the impact or "pop" of the Rubber Band is going to be very, very small (or in other words, with very little power.)

Now, if you take that same Rubber Band and pull it back to where there is an extreme amount of tension in the band (or in other words, through the torso of the hitter), the "pop" is going to be much more explosive (or in other words, with power.)

In truth, the distance between your young hitter's front toe down position and back hand position at the trigger is the definition of "separation". 

Now, does your young hitter separate?  Or could he or she use a Rubber Band?

Are Maple Bats Dangerous?

As a result of Tyler Colvin's most recent accident in which he was struck in the chest by a shattered bat, baseball pundits again are rearing their ugly heads calling for a ban on all bats made of Maple in Major League Baseball.

Jim Anderson, Vice President of MaxBats (and a close, personal friend) responded in this way when I asked him, "What in the world is going on with all these Maple Bats shattering?"

"The bat (not a MaxBat) that Wellington Castillo was using was a Model 243 (large barrel) with a -3 weight drop.  In order to make that model, the manufacturer is forced to use a light billet of wood (light wood = weak wood).  Couple that with the -3 weight drop, and you're going to have problems.  This is one reason I don't advocate anyone using a large barreled bat with a weight drop of greater than -2.  As someone who is in the industry, it didn't take long to realize that the bat in question is a bat with bad slope of grain."

So it's not just Maple then?

"Over the course of the last 2 1/2 years, MLB has collected broken bat data that has been categorized by manufacturer, player, model, wood species, etc.  Interestingly enough, such info reveals that Adam Dunn had 24 multi-piece failures last year.....12 of those failures were with maple, and 12 were with ash.  So, can we just continue to blame maple bats when we see a bat break in 2-pieces on t.v.? No.  Obviously the incident on Sunday between the Cubs and Marlins was very unfortunate, and I can only wish Cubs rookie OF Tyler Colvin a speedy recovery, but to simply blame it solely on the wood species (maple) is a bit of a stretch." 

 So after talking with Jim, perhaps manufacturers should be forced to impose certain dimensions (length, width, weight) on the bats they produce, rather than worrying about what type of wood it is.

What do you think?

 

 

Baseball (Cards) Blog.

Check out this Baseball (Card) Blog that I was interviewed for back on Sept. 8th!
http://borosny.blogspot.com/
Very cool site, (and it's always fun to talk about your childhood!)