The warm summer air, the beauty and brightness of a freshly groomed field, the scent of hot dogs and Cracker Jacks and the "ping" of the bat: baseball has always been a game for the traditionalist.
Shouldn't that be the "crack" of the bat?
Not when referring to college baseball.
America's past time has blended so well with history that the game seems to have developed a personality and set of morals of its own, which is why it is not uncommon to hear from die hards that certain rule changes "damage the integrity of the game."
So is the case in the collegiate baseball ranks. An ongoing, albeit quiet, debate exists as to whether aluminum bats should continue to be the tool of choice for college baseball hitters. It's a debate that becomes stronger as the critics become more fundamentalist. Fans, coaches, and players alike argue as to whether aluminum bats create an unfair advantage for hitters and thus hurting the integrity of the game.
One traditionalist, Vance Law, a former Major Leaguer and head coach of BYU's baseball team, said aluminum bats pose a threat to the integrity of baseball.
"I think it takes away from the purity of the game," Law said. "With metal bats, you can get a lot of hard hit balls when you miss-hit a ball."
The history of aluminum bats in college baseball goes back 34 years. It was 1970 when the metal bats made their debut in the college game. Since then, a variety of metal bats have been used to play the game.
"I think that originally it was designed to help save the cost of buying wood bats all of the time," Law said.
Since the bats' initial use in baseball over 30 years ago, college baseball has seen its batting trends change drastically.
Sean Straziscar works as a stat man for the NCAA, college baseball's governing council. Straziscar has developed a stat sheet that takes an in-depth look at batting statistics since 1970. By just looking at the stat sheets, the numbers are incriminating. As metal bats have evolved in college baseball, batting averages have steadily ballooned. Over the past 34 years batting averages, runs per game, and home runs per game have generally increased. In 1970, the batting average was .262; in 1998, it was up 44 points to .306. In 1970, an average of 4.96 runs were scored per game; by '98, 7.12 runs were scored each contest. Home runs skyrocketed from .40 home runs per game in 1970 to 1.06 home runs per game. No stat man can say that baseball bats don't have anything to do with scoring production.
No one team or player has an unfair advantage, all can use the metal bats. The question is whether one position has an advantage over the other. Pitchers would be the natural victims of the hitting barrage if it exists.
"They [metal bats] don't allow a pitcher to upset a hitter's timing," Law said. "The hitter can be way off time and still get a decent part of a metal bat on the ball and hit it hard."
Kalen Parsons is a pitcher for BYU's baseball team who has seen first hand the difference between wood and aluminum bats. Parsons played junior college baseball at the College of Eastern Utah for two years before coming to BYU. Junior college ball uses wood bats.
"With the aluminum bat, you give up base hits that would sometimes be broken bats with a wood bat," Parsons said. "You see a lot more low-scoring games with wood bats."
Although Parsons said he sees a difference when comparing wood and metal bats, he also believes it is an opportunity for college pitchers and not a threat.
"I think if a pitcher can show that he can get guys out with an aluminum bat, then he can for sure get them out with a wood bat," he said.
While pitchers have a lot to prove when it comes to pitching to guys using aluminum bats, hitters have a lot to lose when it comes to proving their worth at the next level.
"A lot of hitters get an incorrect evaluation of their skills because they get a lot of base hits with aluminum bats," Law said. "If they are hitting with wood [bats], a lot of those hits are outs," Law said.
Hitting is popular. Fans love to see the home runs, but apparently they don't like to see home runs in college baseball. Based on attendance and television exposure, baseball could be considered the least popular of the three most popular sports to watch.
The critics are many, but no change appears to be in the immediate future. The NCAA has not developed a timetable as to when a change could occur. Critics seem to be stuck with aluminum for a while.
"I don't see the college game going back to the wood in the very near future," Law said. "But I personally would like to see it go back to wood bats."
Copyright Brigham Young University 14 Jun 2004
