New
York Times: An occupational hazard of the sport of baseball
is the occasional shattering of the wooden bats as the players
let fly their powerful swings. During the 2010 season,
Welington Castillo, playing for the Chicago Cubs, swung the bat
so hard that it exploded when it met the ball and sent a shard
of wood flying at his teammate Tyler Colvin, who was impaled a
few inches from his heart. The problem stems from the
increasing use of maple bats, which have surpassed ash in
popularity because they have a harder surface and, therefore,
more “pop.” Although all wooden bats can break,
maple is more likely to break catastrophically. To find out
why, authorities from Major League Baseball teamed up with
members of the US Forest Service. According to David
Kretschmann, a Forest Service scientist, one reason is that
maple’s grain is harder to see than that of ash, and
therefore harder to follow when carving the bats. New rules for
producing maple bats have reduced the number of shattering
incidents over the past four years.
