Month: April 2009 (Page 22 of 53)

Bob Klapisch from NorthJersey.com feels that aluminum bats should be banned from little league baseball in the state of New Jersey.

So when does common sense finally kick in? That’s the question we should be asking as Little League and youth baseball starts up this month – with thousands of kids armed with aluminum bats. This practice isn’t just dangerous; it’s our failing as adults.

There’s a bill sitting in the State Legislature calling for the abolition of metal bats in all youth-oriented games. As of now, it’s motion-less – no buzz, no hearings, no vote scheduled. The powerful aluminum-bat cartel appears to have won the war in New Jersey, which is an outrage to the family of Steven Domalewski, the Wayne youth who was permanently disabled after taking a line drive in the chest three years ago.

It’s time our representatives take a lesson from James Oddo, the Minority Leader in the New York City Council. Oddo single-handedly banned aluminum in New York’s high schools in 2007. He took on the industry and, incredibly, beat them. How? By calling out the greed that puts our kids at risk.

So far, the cartel has beaten back challenges in every state except North Dakota. They’ll tell you aluminum saves money (and who isn’t vulnerable to that sales pitch these days?). They’ll tell you aluminum gives every kid a chance to be a slugger, thereby increasing interest in the sport. And most disingenuous of all, they’ll say aluminum is about choice, and what’s more American than freedom of choosing your sporting weapon?

Come on, dude.

Klapisch uses the case of Steven Domalewski who was permanently disabled after taking a line drive to the chest that was hit off an aluminum bat. I’m sure there are many cases of injury caused by balls hit of aluminum bats: Ricky should’ve worn his cup at shortstop and Jake shouldn’t have been picking dirt in left field during that pop fly. Not two weeks ago, Giants pitcher Joe Martinez took a brutal line drive off his head from a wood bat. Freak accidents can happen at any level in baseball because the object of the game is to hit a hard ball thrown by a pitcher at people. The reason why little leaguers don’t use wood bats is because they’re incredibly heavy. Kids don’t have the same upper body strength as a guy like Manny Ramirez, an obvious trait that Klapisch fails to believe.

Look, even if it went into law that kids will now use custom-sized wood bats, unfortunate accidents would continue to happen because that is the nature of the game. You can’t convince me that the ratio of of injury is higher in little league baseball than it is in football, soccer, basketball, and hockey because of aluminum bats. Sports are physical, and there is always the risk of experiencing enormous physical pain no matter what equipment one uses.

Also, I love how he refers to Louisville and Easton as the aluminum bat cartel.