Aluminum vs. Wood Bats

525 Words3 Pages
For almost an entire century of its existence, baseball was dominated by the use of wooden bats. No one would ever think of using anything else because it was simply the way of the game. Not until the seventy’s was it that a new way of playing the game was introduced. In 1974, aluminum bats were introduced to NCAA baseball and they still transpire in today’s NCAA baseball as well. Shortly after, High Schools across the country followed that lead as well. The highest level of the sport, the MLB, never went down that path simply because they wanted raw and professional talent to be exhibited though the game to the country. Over the past few decades, it was evident that offensive statistics skyrocketed and defensive statistics plummeted. Once that became clear to the baseball community, they took action and put limitations on the bats, and further along eventually banned composite bats as well. Nowadays, the NCAA needs to abide by very strict limitations of what type of bats they can use. They are even thinking of converting back to the original wooden bat. Wood vs. aluminum bats has been a widely discussed topic for many years in college baseball. Aluminum bats have been used by college players for quit some time which leads to the questions of why the players do not use wooden like the pros. In the 2011 season, the NCAA changed its rules and enforced that there would be new aluminum bats that were similar to wooden bats. The reason for the change is somewhat complex and many years of research has been done to finally lead to this modification. The NCAA made the change in bats is because of a process called BBCOR or “Bat-Ball Coefficient of Restitution” standard. In a nutshell, it measures the bounciness of the ball when it hits the bat. Many people are scratching there heads because this change has led to less homeruns and total runs in general. The one thing to

More about Aluminum vs. Wood Bats

Open Document