Dewey2007
06-29-2008, 11:44 AM
This was in today's Oakland Tribune.
Baseball is lagging on eliminating maple bats
BAY AREA NEWS GROUP
It was one of the more sickening moments you'll ever witness. In 1976, Los Angeles Dodgers catcher Steve Yeager waited in the on-deck circle at San Diego's Jack Murphy Stadium as teammate Bill Russell swung at a pitch. Russell's bat shattered, and a large piece of the bat hit Yeager in the neck, shattering his esophagus.
Soon thereafter, Dodgers trainer Bill Buhler invented and patented a throat protector that hangs from the catcher's mask. Almost immediately, most catchers around baseball began using it.
See, common sense can prevail in baseball. Unfortunately, you have to turn the memories back 32 years to find the last time it did.
So it is then that as simple as banning maple bats would seem to be, nobody should be holding their breath waiting for it to happen.
And let's not make any mistake. Is there anyone out there — besides the owners of these maple-bat companies, and the union that represents the players who use them — who doesn't think they should be gone, pronto?
"It's really dangerous," Atlanta Braves manager Bobby Cox — a manager for 27 seasons — told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "There are four or five (shattered bats) a night. We're going to lose an eye or something. It could be a fan, could be an umpire, could be a player, could be guys in the dugout, could be anybody ... It's definitely something that needs to be addressed now. Tomorrow. I think it's that serious."
Cox, as he often seems to be, is right on the money. But nothing is ever that simple in the world of baseball. Major League Baseball can commission a study, as it announced last Tuesday it has, to unearth why and how often maple bats are shattering. And the results could deem maple bats the most dangerous thing to hit the sport since steroids.
But even if that scenario plays out, no guarantee exists that maple bats are going anywhere. The Players' Association would have to approve any motion to ban the controversial bats, because terms of working conditions must be worked out through collective bargaining. And since estimates indicate that more than half of major leaguers use maple bats — they prefer the hardness of maple and the whipping motion the thin handles provide — negotiations regarding this matter could get heated.
After all, the union has proven through the years that it would rather engage in a fight than listen to common sense. MLB has proven it doesn't have a whole lot of the latter to begin with, and reports that commissioner Bud Selig is not in favor of banning maple bats only prove the point.
Thus, the guess is that it will take something even more hideous than what we've already seen in the first three months of 2008 to effect any real change. And what we've seen already has been bad enough.
On the same day MLB announced its plans to study the issue, home plate umpire Brian O'Nora suffered a deep laceration behind his left ear when the bat of Colorado's Miguel Olivo broke off at the handle on Olivo's backswing. O'Nora suffered a mild concussion — incidentally, how can any injury to the brain be termed "mild?" — and was released from the hospital the next day.
Pittsburgh Pirates coach Don Long was hit in the face by a broken bat in April, and suffered a deep cut on his nose.
On April 25 at Dodger Stadium, a maple bat used by Colorado's Todd Helton shattered, flew over the third-base dugout and struck Susan Rhodes in the face. Rhodes, who was sitting four rows behind the dugout, had her jaw shattered.
"Imagine if it had her in a vein in her neck," Cox said. "Someone might bleed to death in a matter of seconds."
Indeed. Each day that maple bats remain in play represents one more second off the ticking time bomb that eventually will explode. Be it a pitcher, a position player, an individual sitting on the bench, a fan, or heaven forbid, a child, somebody will be touched by another maple bat explosion.
Only one time, the sight will be even worse than that night Yeager went down. And a happy ending won't be written.
Baseball is lagging on eliminating maple bats
BAY AREA NEWS GROUP
It was one of the more sickening moments you'll ever witness. In 1976, Los Angeles Dodgers catcher Steve Yeager waited in the on-deck circle at San Diego's Jack Murphy Stadium as teammate Bill Russell swung at a pitch. Russell's bat shattered, and a large piece of the bat hit Yeager in the neck, shattering his esophagus.
Soon thereafter, Dodgers trainer Bill Buhler invented and patented a throat protector that hangs from the catcher's mask. Almost immediately, most catchers around baseball began using it.
See, common sense can prevail in baseball. Unfortunately, you have to turn the memories back 32 years to find the last time it did.
So it is then that as simple as banning maple bats would seem to be, nobody should be holding their breath waiting for it to happen.
And let's not make any mistake. Is there anyone out there — besides the owners of these maple-bat companies, and the union that represents the players who use them — who doesn't think they should be gone, pronto?
"It's really dangerous," Atlanta Braves manager Bobby Cox — a manager for 27 seasons — told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "There are four or five (shattered bats) a night. We're going to lose an eye or something. It could be a fan, could be an umpire, could be a player, could be guys in the dugout, could be anybody ... It's definitely something that needs to be addressed now. Tomorrow. I think it's that serious."
Cox, as he often seems to be, is right on the money. But nothing is ever that simple in the world of baseball. Major League Baseball can commission a study, as it announced last Tuesday it has, to unearth why and how often maple bats are shattering. And the results could deem maple bats the most dangerous thing to hit the sport since steroids.
But even if that scenario plays out, no guarantee exists that maple bats are going anywhere. The Players' Association would have to approve any motion to ban the controversial bats, because terms of working conditions must be worked out through collective bargaining. And since estimates indicate that more than half of major leaguers use maple bats — they prefer the hardness of maple and the whipping motion the thin handles provide — negotiations regarding this matter could get heated.
After all, the union has proven through the years that it would rather engage in a fight than listen to common sense. MLB has proven it doesn't have a whole lot of the latter to begin with, and reports that commissioner Bud Selig is not in favor of banning maple bats only prove the point.
Thus, the guess is that it will take something even more hideous than what we've already seen in the first three months of 2008 to effect any real change. And what we've seen already has been bad enough.
On the same day MLB announced its plans to study the issue, home plate umpire Brian O'Nora suffered a deep laceration behind his left ear when the bat of Colorado's Miguel Olivo broke off at the handle on Olivo's backswing. O'Nora suffered a mild concussion — incidentally, how can any injury to the brain be termed "mild?" — and was released from the hospital the next day.
Pittsburgh Pirates coach Don Long was hit in the face by a broken bat in April, and suffered a deep cut on his nose.
On April 25 at Dodger Stadium, a maple bat used by Colorado's Todd Helton shattered, flew over the third-base dugout and struck Susan Rhodes in the face. Rhodes, who was sitting four rows behind the dugout, had her jaw shattered.
"Imagine if it had her in a vein in her neck," Cox said. "Someone might bleed to death in a matter of seconds."
Indeed. Each day that maple bats remain in play represents one more second off the ticking time bomb that eventually will explode. Be it a pitcher, a position player, an individual sitting on the bench, a fan, or heaven forbid, a child, somebody will be touched by another maple bat explosion.
Only one time, the sight will be even worse than that night Yeager went down. And a happy ending won't be written.