Baseball Bat Tech - What Every Parent Should Know
Today, a Montana jury awarded the family of a young man named Brandon Patch, who was killed by a batted ball, $850,000 in damages against the company that makes Louisville Slugger aluminum baseball bats for failure to place warnings on the product. As the father of a little leaguer, and former baseball and softball player myself, my heart goes out to the family of that young man. And it occurs to me that there may be parents out there, who like Brandon's parents at the time of the accident, may not be aware of the dangers inherent to the sport and specifically the challenges presented by aluminum bats. So if you are the parent of a baseball or softball player, here's what you need to know.
Today's aluminum baseball bats are highly engineered pieces of technology, designed on computers and tested extensively. Often, these bats combine aluminum with high tech composite materials, like graphite and titanium, to produce stronger, lighter bats with larger "sweet spots" and higher performance. They know exactly how fast a ball will come off each bat and under what conditions the bats will fail. Indeed, manufacturers have become so effective at creating high performing bats, that they have a hard time meeting the various league safety regulations which limit their performance. The result is that most bats perform right at the upper edge of what is considered "safe." Whether this makes aluminum bats more dangerous than wooden bats is hard to say. The fact is that people have been killed by batted balls off wooden bats and people have been killed by thrown balls from other players. Baseball, while far less dangerous than some other sports, does have its dangers. Players (and even spectators) can be seriously injured or killed by batted and thrown baseballs. Its not common. But it does happen. All parents need to know this.
If you choose to allow your child to play this sport, then you do so at your own risk. But if you want to minimize this risk, there are a few things you can do.
1. Do not allow your child to pitch. Pitchers are at the highest risk of being hit and seriously injured by a batted ball. They are the closest player to the batter and are usually not in a good fielding position at the moment of contact. If choose to allow your child to pitch, (and for the record, I allow my kid to pitch) make sure they follow through into a good fielding position after every pitch. But know that even then, there are some circumstances in which a pitcher simply does not have enough time to react. Even professional pitchers get hit on occasion. Pitching is a dangerous activity. This is true for recreational softball players as well. Consider yourself warned.
2. Teach your child to maintain situational awareness at all times. If you are on the field, whether on bases, or in the "on deck" circle, players have to keep their eyes on the ball at all times. You don't want to get caught looking the other way when a batted or thrown ball comes flying at you.
3. If a player is not on deck, or on base, they should be in the dugout, behind a fence at all times.
4. You also have to teach your kids how to get hit by a pitch when they are the batter. Kids instinctively want to back away from, and keep their eyes on, a pitch coming straight at them. WRONG! Kids should be taught to TURN THEIR BACK on the pitch and turn their heads toward the backstop while they pull away from the plate. Its always better to take a pitch in the back, or on the helmet, then square in the face. But kids need to be taught to do this by adults.
4. Getting hit by a batted ball is not the only way to get hurt. Kids can also be hit by the bat itself. So make sure kids know not to swing bats around other people and not to walk up on someone taking swings. This part is very tricky. Little kids tend not to pay attention to such things, so the parents and coaches need to be vigilant.
All that said, accidents sometimes happen. Baseball is a wonderful sport, but like everything else in life, it has its risks. Those risks include serious injury and sometimes death. If you teach your child to pay attention, remain vigilant and know how to react, you can help to minimize those risks and enjoy the experience more fully.
So have fun and keep your eyes on that ball!
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