Metal Versus Wood Bat
Though a wood bat is legal in NCAA competition, players overwhelmingly prefer and use a metal bat. The metal bat was implemented into college baseball in 1975. Use of a metal bat is somewhat controversial amongst baseball aficionados. Supporters of an aluminum or composite bat note how it can increase offensive performance, as the speed of a ball off a metal bat is generally faster than off a wood bat. Those against metal, and for wood, would argue how a metal bat is not safe to use, and that a metal bat doesn't prepare players for the next level, as pro baseball uses a wood bat exclusively. In the 2011 season the NCAA changed the requirements for a metal bat, reducing the maximum allowed exit speed in a way that is said to produce a feeling more like a wood bat. As a result in 2011 there were fewer overall "long" drives or home runs than in the past.
Read more about this topic: College Baseball
Famous quotes containing the words metal and/or wood:
“We are supposed to be the children of Seth; but Seth is too much of an effete nonentity to deserve ancestral regard. No, we are the sons of Cain, and with violence can be associated the attacks on sound, stone, wood and metal that produced civilisation.”
—Anthony Burgess (b. 1917)
“Lock in! Be alert, my acrobat
and I will be soft wood and you the nail
and we will make fiery ovens for Jack Sprat
and you will hurl yourself into my tiny jail
and we will take a supper together and that
will be that.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)