In 2002, the Consumer Product Safety Commission stated “Available incident data are not sufficient to indicate that non-wood bats may pose an unreasonable risk of injury.” Despite that vote of confidence, the baseball industry implemented a more restrictive standard (BESR) in 2003.

Daniel Russell, Ph. D. (Applied Physics, Kettering University, Flint, Michigan) has concluded that metal bats currently legal for play under NCAA and NFHS regulations do not pose a safety risk that is significantly greater than the risk of playing baseball with wood bats.

Injury statistics have been kept on record at Little League International since the early 1960s. Since that time, there have been eight fatalities in the Little League program as a result of the batted ball. Six of the fatalities have come from wood bats and two from non-wood bats — in 1971 and 1973. Those occurred 20 years before the mandated Bat Performance Factor (BPF) bat standard that is in place today.

In 2007, minor league baseball coach Mike Coolbaugh (Double A — Tulsa Drillers) was killed during a game by a ball hit off a wood bat, while he was coaching first base.

Baseball is not dangerous, but unexpected injuries do occur – off both wood and non-wood bats.

In September of 2007, longtime major league baseball player and current Cincinnati Reds manager (formerly with the San Francisco Giants) Dusty Baker wrote a letter where he defended the integrity and safety of the non-wood baseball bat:

“As a former Major League Baseball player and manager, and as the father of an eight-year-old son who uses a metal bat, I support players using the bat of their choice because I know wood and metal are safe. If they weren’t, I wouldn’t let my son use an aluminum bat. I strongly believe leagues, players, coaches and baseball officials should decide what type of bat they want to use.”

Since 2003, non-wood baseball bats used in high schools have been scientifically regulated so that the speed of batted balls off non-wood bats is comparable to that of the best major league wood bats. This safety standard – BESR (Ball Exit Speed Ratio) has been adopted by the NCAA and the National Federation of State High School Associations.

Today’s major leaguers all grew up using a non-wood bat. Secondly, amateur baseball is not the training ground for pro baseball. Amateur baseball’s only obligation is to give today’s young players a chance to play and enjoy the game. There’s no need to force amateur baseball players to use a wood bat when many don’t want to play pro baseball or will ever be good enough to play pro baseball.

Two of the main reasons for injuries in baseball are thrown balls and collisions – not batted balls.

It’s important to realize that standards on bat performance are NOT established by bat makers. They are agreed upon and enforced by baseball’s governing bodies.

A baseball fan