When I saw the headline about a prehistoric mammal that used its tail like a baseball bat, I was only mildly tempted to click. I doubted there’d be video, and I figured video would be the best reason to look. But something still made me click it. And I’m glad I did, because had I not, I wouldn’t know that these mammals, called glyptodonts, not used its tail like a bat…it also has a sweet spot!
Long before Hank and the Babe were smacking homers (and also long before Andy Roddick found his 155 mph serve), Glyptodonts figured out the science behind the swing. MSNBC.com’s coverage included an explanation from research Rudermar Ernesto Blanco: The center of percussion is a point where you can deliver a very powerful blow with a baseball bat, a tennis racket, a sword, an axe or any hand-held implement, but the forces against your hands are almost zero.
They look like giant armadillos, so the bat boys would have some trouble keeping things organized. Catchers wouldn’t be safe, and I wouldn’t expect great baserunning speed. But the next time you make good contact, you may want to give a little thanks to these prehistoric creatures.
When this game first caught my eye, I thought it might be the last straw toward my exclamation, “Enough with the video games—go outside!” But since it’s the middle of a thunderstorm and I’ve been trapped in traffic with friends with iPhones quite enough this summer, I realized that the new iPhone game Baseball Slugger: Home Run Race 3D might be just what the iPhone-owning baseball fan might need during some downtime. Since I don’t have an iPhone (at least not yet), I’m relying on this demo:
You can look into plenty of the reviews, but my question is this: Is this a worthy downtime of our favorite pastime, or is it just another game keeping would-be batters indoors?
(And are you worried about ruining your Wii Baseball swing?)
At high schools and colleges across the nation, the debate about aluminum bat safety continues. Play Ball USA and Ron Cacini offer helpful words in this video. Cacini doesn’t try to convince you of an answer to the alumnium vs. wood question. Instead, he explains that it’s proper technique, bat weight, and bat length, that will help boost safety for those whose leagues use aluminum bats. He gives a general explanation of bat exit speed ratio. Cacini doesn’t talk much about wood bats, so it does have an air of advocating for aluminum.
For a casual video shoot in a batting cage, the former Houston farmhand really has a decent swing.
The 2009 Home Run Derby brought some exciting action, and a brand new leader in the baseball bat category. While the Champion Swung the original maple bat - Sam Bat , 4 of the 8 players were using Marucci - a name most hadn’t heard of just 2 years ago.
As the College World Series grows more popular each year, the NCAA will also need to be more vigilant each year. Sure, the college game shouldn’t be as scandal-prone as the majors have been, but it can still have its problems. One of the big potential concerns is bat rolling, stretching the metal fibers by applying pressure from two rollers. The stretched fibers are more flexible, giving the bat more pop. Of course rolling is illegal in NCAA play, and The Boston Herald reports that of 500 bats tested at the College World Series, 25 were illegal, five because of rolling.
According to the Herald,Easton bats is working on a softball bat that would visually expose the affects of rolling, but there’s no word about the same practice for baseball bats.
The NCAA will be watching, and improving its ability to watch. We’ll keep an eye on it too.
Dustin Ackley. Tim Wheeler. Grant Green. Which way is your team going when it looks for the best bats in tonight’s 2009 MLB draft? Sure, plenty of duds have come from drafts in recent memory, but that doesn’t stop us from thinking our favorite team’s scouting department is going to find this year’s biggest start. Who are you pulling for your team to pick up in tonight’s draft?
Had you already heard about the response Vernon Wells had for a bunch of hecklers at the beginning of this month? After enough innings of shouts and jeers, the story goes, Wells tossed a ball up to the stands, with a handwritten message:
“Here’s your ball, now please tell me what gas station you work at so I can come and yell at you when you’re working. Please sit down, shut up, and enjoy the game. From your favorite centerfielder, Vernon Wells”
Maybe the fans got under Wells’s skin, but that’s a pretty comedic retort. Poetry it’s not. Billy Chapel’s signed message in For the Love of the Game it’s not. (And while we’re on Costner, it’s also not as good as the note Crash sent Annie in Bull Durham.)
HomerDerby caught up with the hecklers to share their story and posted the interview. Of course, they may not be up to the caliber of the original hecklers, but you can judge for yourself.
Baseball’s efforts for cancer awareness don’t stop a the MLB-wide Mother’s Day campaign. This week, the Yankees welcomed an honorary bat girl, Polly Tompkins, who is battling stage 4 melanoma.
Tompkins threw out the first pitch, hung out with Alex Rodriguez, Derek Jeter, and Nick Swisher, and brought about 100 friends and family members to the game. Donning a white and pink jersey, when Tompkins pointed to her group in the stands, Rodriguez and Swisher jumped into the section, shook hands, and signed autographs.
It’s not every day that the pregame schedule takes on this meaning—it’s good to see the game making a difference and giving people an incredible experience.
Do you remember which Chicago club President Barack Obama favors? In interview with Stuart Scott last year, the then-candidate gave the answer. The White Sox. He even got to throw out the first pitch at their season opener this year.
But Obama has been a baseball fan since long before he moved to Chicago…the Tribune found a great childhood photo of him in Hawaii taking an early swing. The bat looks a little big for him… maybe he should have taken our advice about youth bats.
Obama is a lefty now, but from the follow-through, it looks like he may have been a righty in his youth. We’ll let that slide.
The baseball bat industry is so huge that of course most of the big companies are mass producing their bats. But handcrafted baseball bats aren’t a lost art, and Morgan Paige from PressPassTV has a report with great visuals from on how Akadema makes bats by hand.
