State Leagues Say Metal Bats Safe
April 25, 2007

Copyright 2007 Great Falls (MT) Tribune
By SCOTT MANSCH
Tribune Asst. Sports Editor

Nowhere is the issue of metal bats in baseball more emotional or controversial than in Montana.

Nearly four years ago a Miles City pitcher, Brandon Patch, was killed when struck by a line drive off the the aluminum bat of a Helena hitter. Since then Brandon's parents have been trying to outlaw the use of metal bats in youth baseball games.

Debbie Patch, Brandon's mother, testified before the House Business and Labor Committee in February, 2005, as a proponent for HB 588, which would have required the use of wooden baseball bats in Montana. Lawmakers did urge the Legion to enact the ban, but stopped short of requiring it.

In Miles City, civic leaders have decided that baseball in that city will forever be played with wood bats.
But elsewhere, the idea has pretty much struck out.

While this week's ruling in New York City that makes it illegal to use metal bats in high school games is undoubtedly a victory for the Patch family, widespread support for the notion does not exist within two of the most popular baseball organizations in the state.

Thousands of youths belong to Little League and American Legion teams in Montana. Both are connected to national factions that do not support the banning of metal bats.

Longtime Great Falls baseball fan Willie Shine doesn't, either. Shine is president of the Great Falls Electrics Legion club. His son, Jordan, played several years at Miles Community College — which doesn't use metal bats — and is now on the team at Montana State-Billings, an NCAA Division II team.

The NCAA permits metal bats.

"I think a ball comes off a good wood bat harder," said Shine.

While it seems obvious that baseballs fly farther when hit by metal bats, American Legion baseball says it conducted a lengthy test and came up with no evidence to indicate balls come off such bats any faster. And that is at the crux of the safety issue.

"I would agree with that study," Shine said. "It was a terrible accident that happened, but I don't think you're saving any lives one way or the other by banning the bats."

The Little League is also against such a ban. On its Web site (http://littleleague.org), the organization recently posted a statement supporting the right of a local league to implement a wood-only rule, but that it "does not accept the premise that the game will be safer if played exclusively with wood, simply because there are no facts — none at all — to support that premise.

"As a result, any individual or league choosing a wood-only option must understand that the choice is not being made because of any factual data or scientific information."

The Little League statement says that in 2002, "the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission reviewed this issue thoroughly and resolved that there was inconclusive data to support such a ban of non-wood bats from use in high school and youth baseball."

The statement also says that since records were kept beginning in the 1960s, "there have been eight fatalities in Little League Baseball from batted balls. Six of those resulted from balls hit by wood bats and two from balls hit by non-wood bats."

The issue made news on the Montana baseball scene last summer when the Bozeman Bucks refused to use wood bats in a Legion doubleheader with Miles City, which for the last four years has requested that its foes comply with the metal ban. So Miles City forfeited the games.

That got them in trouble with the state American Legion office, which suspended Miles City from Legion league play this summer and moved the 2007 State AA Tournament from that city to Billings.