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Eric
06-09-2008, 05:17 PM
Touching Base: Maple bats a cause for concern throughout majors

By JESSE SPECTOR
DAILY NEWS SPORTS WRITER
Sunday, June 8th 2008, 10:46 PM
http://www.nydailynews.com/img/2008/06/09/alg_jasongiambi.jpg Antonelli/News Jason Giambi breaks bat earlier this season in what some feel is becoming a dangerous epidemic in baseball.


Blue Jays (http://www.nydailynews.com/topics/Toronto+Blue+Jays) outfielder Shannon Stewart (http://www.nydailynews.com/topics/Shannon+Stewart) is fed up. He's swung a maple bat since 2000, but this year he can't seem to keep them in one piece, so he's switching back to the traditional ash bats.

"The maple's been shattering a lot, more than usual," Stewart says.

"Sometimes I hit the ball on the good part of the bat and it just shatters. I've never had as many bats shatter since I went to maple. ... It just feels a little different."

Stewart isn't alone. All over baseball, the sight of maple bats breaking has become all too familiar, usually with splinters and shards flying all over the infield. The seeming epidemic has sparked Major League Baseball (http://www.nydailynews.com/topics/Major+League+Baseball) and the players' union to schedule a meeting for later this month to discuss safety concerns.

"Those (bat shards) are like a lethal weapon flying through the air," says Dodgers (http://www.nydailynews.com/topics/Los+Angeles+Dodgers) third base coach Larry Bowa (http://www.nydailynews.com/topics/Larry+Bowa). "Especially on a ball right back at (a pitcher), your concentration is there, and then the bat is whirlybirding at your head or your neck. That's an issue they have to look at big time, and if the maple bats are the reason they're breaking, they can ban them. They have to look into it."

But Bowa believes the increasing popularity of maple bats is only part of the problem. He points to the fact that players today use lighter bats with thinner handles and thicker barrels than ever before, which will cause bats of any wood to break.

Bearing out Bowa's theory is Dodgers outfielder Andre Ethier (http://www.nydailynews.com/topics/Andre+Ethier), who says that he's been using the same thick-handled maple bat "for about a month now." Marlins (http://www.nydailynews.com/topics/Florida+Marlins) first baseman Mike Jacobs (http://www.nydailynews.com/topics/Mike+Jacobs) also hasn't experienced problems, saying the maple "lasts longer" than ash.

Jacobs uses both maple and ash, and pulls one of each out of his locker for a comparison, noting the smoothness of the finish on the maple against the visible lines of wood grain on the ash bat.

"On ash bats, the grains, these grooves, they start opening up - all the stuff comes out and they start flaking and chipping," Jacobs says. "I can use it for three days maybe, and that'll be it. I still like ash bats, but I primarily use maple right now. ... They last longer."

Until they explode. And part of the reason that maple bats explode, instead of splintering the way ash bats do, is in the visibility of those wood grains. The smoothness of maple can hide imperfections deep within the wood.

"When we make a bat out of ash, we have nearly 100% confidence that the piece of wood we're using is going to be a good piece of wood just because of the integrity of ash and our experience in dealing with it," says Louisville (http://www.nydailynews.com/topics/Louisville) Slugger spokesman Rick Redman, who adds that the company has not seen a flurry of orders for replacement bats. "We can't say the same for maple because it can look like a great piece of wood but we've found cases ... when it breaks you can see the defect deep inside the bat wood."