One of our advertisers, Bear Valley Bats, has compiled, from several articles and other sources, some great information on how to help make your wood bat last longer and perform better. A must-read for anyone using wood.
For POROUS Grain Wood – Ash, Hickory, Black Locust
Today’s hitters are plagued with the problem of wood bat breakage. Nowhere is this more apparent than the recent maple bat dilemma in the Major Leagues. Dangerous fragmentation of maple bats that has resulted in serious injuries has brought to light the hazards created when no attention is given to proper instruction of hitters regarding edge-grain orientation at the point of contact.
Most wood bat breakage issues can be resolved by properly orienting the logo (or trademark) so as to place the edge grain parallel to the flight of the baseball at the point of contact. This is the position that yields the lowest breakage and the highest hitting power.
The traditional saying “logo face up”, has its origins in the early years of baseball when hitters used a different style of hitting. Hitters like Gehrig, Dimaggio, and others swung the bat more linear and transferred more weight to the front foot. This forward momentum kept their upper body level and thus the bat barrel did not rotate. Today’s hitters use a rotational method of swinging a bat. More weight is placed on the back leg with the hitter rotating the torso. This causes the shoulders to dip toward the ball and creates rotation of the bat barrel. The result is today’s hitters tend to hit with the flat grain of the bat more often despiteand this results in breakage and loss of power.
To cut down on breakage, hold the bat in front of you with the logo up (or facing you). Then rotate the logo towards your lead shoulder (shoulder closest to the pitcher). The more you hit off your back foot, the more you should rotate the bat toward the lead shoulder. The maximum angle should be 45 degrees. You may want to place a mark on the bat once you get the ideal alignment. This should put your bat in the proper hitting position with the edge grain aligned perfectly to hit the ball. This proper alignment not only will decrease breakage dramatically, but will also increase hitting power due to the restriction of the flexion of the bat.
Other things you can do to reduce breakage include:
• Use a heavier bat. A -3 metal swinger does not equate to a -3 wood swinger. The metal bat has higher strength than wood at low weights. -3 wood bats break more often than -2 wood bats.
Remember, there is no such thing as -3 trees. To get lower weights you have to sacrifice density and that decreases strength. Ideally, you should hit with a wood bat weighing the same as the length. A 33″ bat should weight 33oz. The difference between an even weight bat and a -3 is less than a hamburger patty so don’t be intimidated by such a small weight difference. In fact, study after study has proven that heavier bats transfer more energy to the ball. Of course there is a point of diminishing returns. At some point bat speed is reduced too much by the weight.
• You can also increase the handle diameter. Most wood bat companies offer handles below 1″ in diameter which means the bat will break very easily. Old school handles were often greater than 1″ which made the bats slightly heavier but reduced breakage. Also, a larger diameter handle means less flexion and that equates to greater power. A recent study demonstrated that a wood bat handle of 1 inch or larger will break 24% less than a handle that is less than one inch.
Lastly, pitchers with good fastball movement can saw you off on the inside and there is not much you can do about it.
But, a majority of bats that break did so when hitting the outside pitch and including off-speed. The ball doesn’t need to be thrown hard to break a bat. Hitting off the last 2″ of the barrel causes the bat to flex backwards excessively and will fracture the bat at a point close to the hands and the break will be formed at the leading edge of the bat. This is opposite that of a bat broken by an inside fastball that breaks on the trailing edge. An inside fastball hits the handle and stops the momentum of the handle. The barrel, having more mass, continues forward and causes a U-shaped bowing of the bat forward. This causes the bat to break at the hands on the trailing edge.
…a majority of bats that break did so when hitting the outside pitch, including off speed. The ball doesn’t need to be thrown hard to break a bat. Hitting off the last 2″ of the barrel causes the bat to flex backwards excessively and will fracture the bat at a point close to the hands and the break will be formed at the leading edge of the bat.
The key to hitting the outside pitch is to hit it off the back of the plate. This will allow the barrel to hit the ball solid and drive the ball hard to the opposite field. Not timing the outside pitch properly causes poorly hit balls off the end of the bat, weak grounders, broken bats, shame, ridicule, losing, you get the picture.
Practice hitting for power to the opposite field. It can only be done by hitting off the back of the plate. You should never begin hitting practice with inside pitches you can pull. Always have the BP thrower start you with outside pitches and work the pitches inward.
For NON-POROUS Wood – Birch, Maple
Recently, the MLB passed a series of wood bat guidelines. In these guidelines was the requirement to place logos on edgegrain of Maple and Birch bats so that the hitting surface is the face grain. This would decrease breakage but, by their own admission, decrease performance. Oddly enough, this method works for breakage because now instead of the players rotating the face side of the grain toward the baseball, they now rotate the edgegrain toward it. Unless of course, the hitters know the facegrain orientation causes decreased performance and do not put the logo side up but place the logo facing the pitcher or catcher.
Because MLB rules require us to place our logo on the edge grain of Birch bats, we do so. There is serious doubt, based on experience and new data, that the new MLB bat rules have improved the rate at which Maple wood bats break. Just this year in a MLB game, a player rounding third was literally impaled by the pointed end of a barrel from a broken Maple bat. Most professional players don’t see any difference and consequently, when they use Birch and Maple bats, they hit with the edge grain just as they do with Ash.
BVB has implemented a new dimension in bat making techniques. For the last 2 years we have been making Birch bats with the heartwood in the barrel. The heartwood of Birch and virtually all wood, is 30%-50% harder and heavier than the sap wood. Hitting on the face grain of a heartwood barrel is far more productive than hitting on the edge grain of sapwood. So keep that in mind when you order Birch from BVB.
Remember, good technique and focus reduces bat breakage and increases performance.
The good news is that your bat-maker can help you design a bat for your style so that when you mishit a pitch, it will reduce the chances of breaking the bat.

By Brian Gotta, President of Upstart Sports

Years ago, my 13 year-old daughter played soccer for a highly-ranked competitive team. She loved it. It was probably her favorite thing to do in the world. She and my 15 year-old son refereed rec games on weekends as a part-time job. One Saturday, I went to pick up my son from the game he was doing. I got there a little early and watched the last ten minutes. The girls were the same age as my daughter – 13U. The first thing that struck me was how different this game was from the ones I’ve grown accustomed to watching over the past several years. These girls were not tremendously skilled. They did not run particularly hard after loose balls and they were not very aggressive. There was little passing or development of plays; it was more kicking the ball downfield, back and forth. And after watching for a few minutes I remember thinking, “Thank goodness for rec sports.”

Compared to the elite level of sport I’d been seeing, there was much these girls were not doing. But there was a lot they were doing, too. They were clearly having fun. They were exercising. They were supporting their teammates. The only comments I heard from either of the coaches on either sideline were an occasional, “Get there, Brittany!” and “Great job, Sarah!” As dusk neared, the field took on a mix of golden sunlight and long shadows. In that context, the purity and innocence of kids playing a game together in harmony, with no overbearing pressure to win, no fear of consequences for making a mistake, just trying their best for no other sake but to get enjoyment out of the game, became striking to me. My daughter’s team would have literally beaten either of these teams by twenty, but that isn’t what this was about. There are plenty of competitive avenues available for kids who want to pursue that route. Isn’t it wonderful to also offer something for those who don’t?

My son, who was refereeing this game, has long been a competitive baseball player, but he played several seasons of rec soccer. The screensaver my computer used to be set up to shuffle through all of our old digital photos and every now and then I’ll see one of him, as a little boy, on the soccer field. I look at these photos and think about how he played this sport just because he wanted to try it – he wasn’t worried about advancing to high school or college. It was just rec. However, I remember with shame how I used to get on him from the sidelines and tell him he wasn’t hustling, that he was standing around too much. I had put more value on his scoring goals than having fun. I wish I could have a do-over.

Shortly before the girl’s game ended Saturday afternoon there was a moment when the blue team had an open shot and their player got a good kick on it. It came hard to the goal, but right at the goalie, who reached up and caught it. It was a play that, on my daughter’s team, would not warrant so much as a clapping of hands because at that level every keeper stops that shot 100% of the time. But when this goalie caught the ball, all of her defenders cried out, “Nice play, Julia!” The fans on both sides applauded the tremendous kick and the great save. The goalie couldn’t help but let a huge, proud grin spread over her face as she ran out to punt the ball away. Will this girl ever know what it is like to win a State Cup, or get a college scholarship? Maybe not. But I can say for certain that at that instant she knew, as well as anyone ever has, how much fun it can be to play the game.

By Brian Gotta, President of Upstart Sports
​
I ran into a friend of mine who is on the board of the local Little League where I served eight years. He was telling me about some changes the league was making which they felt were very positive.

One of their new ideas is to create a division above the current “Machine-Pitch” level where some of the “more talented” kids could begin doing live pitching instead of facing a machine. In the past we’d always mandated that six year-olds play T-ball, seven year-olds Coach-Pitch, eight year-olds, Machine-Pitch, and then only when you are nine do you begin facing live pitching.

I don’t want to get into a debate on whether the idea of starting kids on live pitching at eight is better or worse than age nine, but it did bring up some questions, most notably, how would those “more talented” kids be selected? I know from experience on the board that 80% of the parents in our community believe their six and seven year-olds possess advanced skills. How, I wondered, would the board determine who gets to “play-up” and who doesn’t? Were they now going to begin tryouts a year earlier, at age 8?

My friend said that they were dead-set against tryouts for eight year-olds and that they were going to base who got to play on the evaluations filled out by the previous year’s Coach-Pitch manager. I think they’re in for some trouble with this strategy. Not only is it difficult to get 12-14 managers at this level to fill out the evaluations to begin with, I feel that asking them to determine who is eligible to move up or not puts these people in a tough situation. Few who sign up to coach seven year-old kids in Coach-Pitch are going to want to take on the added responsibility of determining which players advance and which don’t. Plus, I can just hear the parents now of the kids who aren’t above the threshold. “He said Johnny was better than my son? Johnny couldn’t hold a candle to Timmy!” Now, in a division that is supposed to simply recreational and instructional, I can see parents watching every game with score books and keeping batting averages so that, at the end of the season, they can prove their son deserves a shot at skipping a level next year too.

What it means is, they’re eventually going to have to do a tryout for eight year-olds, which got me thinking, how young is too young for children to “try-out” for a sport? I’m not referring to assessments where confidential evaluations are made in order to form fair teams, yet where everyone makes a team and gets to play. I’m talking about a full-fledged try-out where some will be given the good news that they made the cut, and others will be told they are not good enough.

I’m not sure there is any definitive right or wrong answer, but it is certainly one every organization in every youth sport should examine.

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