About Wooden Baseball Bats

A wooden baseball bat is a club-shaped piece of wood used to play the game of baseball on the major league level. The wooden bat has been replaced for the most part on the college and high school level, mostly for economic reasons. Wooden bats can be of different lengths and weights and made out of various types of woods.

  1. Features

    • A wooden bat is designed to be swung with speed, which produces the force required to hit a baseball hard. The barrel of the bat is the thick part at the hitting end, with the best portion of the barrel referred to as the "sweet spot," the part of the bat that will propel the ball the farthest when it connects cleanly. The very end of the bat is called the tip or end. Where the bat narrows toward the opposite end is the handle, where players will grip the bat to swing it. The knob of a wooden bat is the wide piece on the very end of the handle that keeps the bat from flying out of the hitters' hands when they swing.

    Identification

    • Major League Baseball only allows players to use wooden bats. They cannot be hollowed out or have cork in them, a trick some batters try to get away with so that they can swing the bat quicker since it would be lighter. The baseball makes a sound when hit with a wooden bat that is described as a "crack." In comparison, balls hit solidly with a metal baseball bat will make a sound described as a "ping." Outfielders can often identify whether a ball has been struck well by the sound it makes off of a wooden bat. They will be said to be "off at the crack of the bat" when they turn and start to chase a well-hit fly ball.

    Types

    • Wooden bats have traditionally been made out of ash. Ash is a light wood but strong and stands up well to the rigors of hitting a pitch. Maple has started to become as popular as ash in making bats, but the maple bats have shown a tendency to shatter when they strike the ball the wrong way. For instance, a pitch in on the handle can send a maple bat splintering into pieces, with shards of wood flying about the infield.

    Considerations

    • There are different companies that produce wooden bats, with Rawlings, Brett Brothers, Wilson, and Mizuno a few of them. However, the most famous maker of wooden bats is the Louisville Slugger Company, located in Louisville, Kentucky. Louisville Slugger has been in existence since 1884 manufacturing bats. Every player that reaches the major league level is given the opportunity to sign a contract with this outfit if they wish. The company boasts that 60 percent of all major league players opt to use a Louisville Slugger.

    Expert Insight

    • Baseball players dislike playing in cold weather. The cold makes the bat vibrate in their hands when they fail to hit the ball solidly. These vibrations through the wooden bat are called "bees in the bat." One of the most famous individual wooden bats was a model used by Joe DiMaggio during his 56-game hitting streak in 1941. At one point the bat was stolen, but the fellow that stole it had a change of heart and arranged to return it to DiMaggio. The bat eventually broke during the streak but the intrigue surrounding its "kidnapping" was reported on every day in the newspapers.