Changing Times: New Bats, New Swings

The ball, of course, is not supposed to change. Insiders know that it does, whether by accident or design. Former big-league pitcher Pat Maholmes admitted to me as the new millennium began that the late nineties had seen a very lively ball--just in time, I pointed out, to fuel an exciting home-run derby after the '94 strike had alienated the public from the game. (Mr. Maholmes, I should add, was far more concerned about the effects of steroids on play.) As a hitter, I have no control over what ball is given to the pitcher. But I can certainly choose a longer or shorter bat with a thicker or thinner barrel and/or handle, etc. It is obvious that bats before World War II, in comparison to those used today, tended to be a) longer, b) thicker-handled, and c) thinner-barreled. Today's wooden bat is as much a clone of the metallic kind that all kids grow up using as is technologically feasible: all barrel and no handle, one might simplify, with an alarming flare at the point of transition. These bats break so easily that Blue Jays player John McDonald was recently left with little more than a knob in his hand after tapping the plate during his settling-in rituals. Tony Gwynn told George Will (author of Men at Work) in no uncertain terms that he chose a wooden bat after turning professional that would replicate his aluminum model from college as much as possible.

In between, you have the bats that I grew up with. They were still typically about 35" long, with handles of variable thickness and barrels rather less thick than today's models. Sluggers like Mantle often favored a thin handle. Diminutive lead-off man Bobby Richardson used one of the thickest, heaviest bats around: he choked up on it and tried to get some piece of it on some part of the ball.

In my opinion, there's no definitively right or wrong bat--but to use a certain kind of bat, you have to take a certain approach to the ball. This is a large part of what I want to discuss in subsequent posts. I hope younger players may at least "fool around" with unusual models to get some productive ideas and bring some variety back into a game too characterized now by home runs, bloopers, and strikeouts. Of course, where CAN you find a 39" thin-barreled bat with little taper unless you make one (as I've done out of an old hickory limb)? If you get your hands on such a thing, however, you will notice--after getting past the "utter impossibility" of swinging it--that it responds pretty well to a kind of swing you've never seen in your life. But you can see parts of it in old photos. Or you may just barely glimpse it all in an old newsreel.