What Coaches Are Saying
March 15, 2007

"Using wooden bats isn't cost efficient. Kids are going to break wooden bats because they're not strong enough to hit with wood. If we went to wooden bats I would have my kids throw inside 90 percent of the time. Most high school pitchers can't control that part of the plate. The ball will come off the bat slower, but there will be more injuries because more kids are going to get hit."
--Winnacunnet High School (NH) coach Mike Daboul, "Bat Debate Revived by Injury," Portsmouth Herald, May 23, 2005.


"Wood is too expensive for our high school budgets," Brophy (AZ) High School coach Tom Succow said. "If we were to go to wood, we probably wouldn't get the wood major leaguers use."

Affluent families could probably afford to buy their kids wood bats, but that's not the case at some schools where the district supplies the aluminum bats, says Central High coach Dan Streeter, who this season received four aluminum bats for his program.

"It's a great idea if we could go with wood bats," Horizon coach Eric Kibler said. "That's baseball. But how are we going to finance it?"
--THE ARIZONA REPUBLIC- 04/11/03


"If you talk to people who are using wood, they're going to tell you that thay are breaking tons of bats. Within three weeks kids are breaking bats and they need to buy new ones. And, pitchers are pitching inside more, which is causing even more bats to break. A good metal bat will cost you between $100 and $250. I still have aluminum bats that I've had for almost four years. A wood bat will cost you about $50 each, and you'll have to buy 20 of them for a year. It's expensive."
--Blue Hills (MA) High School coach Al Dellorco, THE QUINCY PATRIOT LEDGER- APRIL, 2003