Teams Drop Heavy Metal for Wooden Instruments

For college baseball players and major league scouts who think aluminum bats may artificially inflate a prospect’s statistics, the Staunton Valley Baseball League is the place to be this summer.

As an experiment this season, the league outlawed aluminum bats, which have been permitted on the amateur level for more than a decade, and switched to the wooden bats required in professional baseball.

“The scouts love it because they’re looking at players who are swinging the same thing that they’re swinging in the minor leagues and the major leagues,” league president David Biery said. “And the players are very anxious to see what they can do with a wooden bat.”

Of the 25 players on the rosters of each of the league’s seven teams, “I would estimate 90 percent of them have probably never swung a wooden bat in competition,” Biery said.

The league is one of seven NCAA-sanctioned summer circuits for college players who aspire to play pro ball, and it is the second summer league to return to the wooden bats on a trial basis.

“In the Cape Cod League last year,” Biery said, “it cut their team batting averages by 20 points, it cut the home run production by two-thirds, it reduced the league’s earned run average by one whole point, and also reduced the playing time of the games.”

Sylvia Honke, the league’s statistician, said she expects similar results this season.

“I would also say that because the word got out on how good it is to be where the bats are,” she said, “we’re probably getting the best players on the NCAA eligibility list, guys who might otherwise be in Alaska or Cape Cod.”

One of those players is Jim Peterson, a right-handed pitcher who had a 12-4 record with a 3.50 ERA this spring as a junior at East Carolina. Peterson, playing for the Staunton Braves this summer, said the experiment “was probably the main reason I came here -- to get the experience of seeing if I could pitch on a level where they use wood.”

Peterson, who won his first four games and posted an ERA of 1.10, said he noticed several differences in pitching to batters using wooden bats.

“Now the pitchers can get inside a lot easier on the hitters,” Peterson said. “The hitters are finding it harder to adjust to the heavier bats.

“And it seems like they can get a hit easier off the inside of an aluminum bat,” he said. “With wood, it’s a lot easier to get a little squibbler off the inside, where with aluminum, it may be more of a solid line drive type of shot.”

Bill Morris, a shortstop at Ohio State who also is playing for Staunton this year, did not know about the experiment until a few days before he joined the team.

“I wasn’t too sure about it at first,” Morris said. “I got here and saw the guys taking batting practice, and I still wasn’t too sure about it. The last time I used a wooden bat was in Little League.”

But contrary to the lower batting averages last year in the Cape Cod League and the reports that pitchers had the upper hand, Morris’ hitting improved. After batting .250 at school this spring, Morris hit .370 through the first four weeks.