Crack of the Bat May Change in Pro Baseball

Ping. The sound has been echoing around amateur baseball since 1970.

Crack. That’s the sound of the professional game.

Ching. That’s the sound of the cash register ringing up a sale as a wooden bat shatters and is replaced by another and another and another.

When TrueCue, the first aluminum bat, made it’s debut 19 years ago it looked more like a mutation than an innovation--its shiny metal barrel was attached to a wooden handle. But it started a trend that is here to stay.

Virtually the only holdout is the pro game. And a recent cover story in Sports Illustrated said fans can expect aluminum bats in the major leagues “probably . . . by the turn of the century.”

It doesn’t seem so far-fetched when you think about what’s happened in the past 25 years. If you had told Babe Ruth that baseball would some day be played indoors on plastic grass he probably would have thought you were off your rocker.

But could it really be that Bo Jackson will spend the twilight of his career swinging aluminum in search of that extra edge?

Probably not. The estimated $30,000 a year a major-league team can save by switching to aluminum bats is a relatively small savings for such a major change in the game, a change that could lead to a rewriting of the record books.

The other argument for aluminum bats is a shortage good wood. But forestry experts say not to worry, adding that aluminum bats in the amateur game has lessened the demand for wood.

Hillerich & Bradsby and Rawlings monopolize the major-league bat market, with Rawlings’ share hovering between 25 and 30 percent, according to company spokesman Scott Smith. Every wooden Adirondack bat Rawlings produces each year--Smith estimates the figure to be slightly over 10,000--for the likes of Darryl Strawberry and Will Clark is made at a small plant in this upstate New York village.

People in this neck of the woods have been hearing of the aluminum assault for years, and they don’t like reading tales that don’t tell the whole story.

“A lot of people in the factory didn’t think much of it (the SI story),” said William Steele, one of only two people authorized by Rawlings to make its major-league bats. “A person who doesn’t know the business and what’s really going on will read that story and think that everything’s going to aluminum. I’ve been hearing it since 1982. It’s just another one of those stories.”

One that appears to be full of holes.

Baseball is coming off a decade of strong growth. In addition to record attendance, the current four-year television contract brings in $1.45 billion distributed to the 26 teams.

With million-dollar a year salaries commonplace, saving $30,000 on bats seems a low priority.

So what about a wood shortage?

“We actually explored some studies that were done by the forestry commission,” Smith said. “I don’t know of any other area in the country that anyone gets wood from other than upstate New York and Pennsylvania, and the white ash supply in upstate New York is not decreasing at all. One of the beauties of the aluminum bat is that the demand on wood bats is not even close to being as great as it once was.”

“We have not had indications from suppliers that there is any shortage of wood,” said Bill Murray, director of operations for Major League Baseball. “In fact, they indicate they have no supply problems of wood or their ability to produce the bats. So we intend to stay with wood bats. It looks like they’re going to be around.”

Ping. Forget it!