Science needs to study aluminum bats

By PAUL WOODY
MEDIA GENERAL NEWS SERVICE
Published: June 3, 2008

The debate on the safety of aluminum bats always simmers just under the surface, then bubbles to the top every few years.
This year, the catalyst for the debate not just bubbling to the top but spewing over the sides is the lawsuit filed by the family of Steve Domalweski.
Domalweski was a 12-year-old pitcher in Wayne, N.J., when, in June 2006, a ball struck by an aluminum bat hit him in the chest. His heart stopped, his brain was deprived of oxygen for between 15 and 20 minutes, despite the quick administration of CPR, and Domalweski now is severely disabled.
The Domalweskis are suing Little League Baseball for approving the use of the bat - their son was playing in a Police Athletic League - the company that manufactured the bat and the store that sold the bat.
The Domalweskis have been praised and vilified in the blogosphere.
This issue needs to exit the blogosphere and enter the scientific sphere.
We need answers, not more opinions. This is not some barroom bet on whether Mickey Mantle or Mike Schmidt had more home runs.
This is a matter of life and death.
If aluminum bats put children and young adults at an unacceptable risk, they need to be banned.
If aluminum bats are no more dangerous than wooden bats, parents need to assess the risk involved, then decide whether their children will step onto a baseball or softball diamond.
Some are certain the risk with aluminum is no greater than with wood.
Others are certain aluminum bats are dangerous weapons.
But no one knows for sure.
That’s ridiculous because someone should know.
We should be able to cite scientific proof that aluminum bats are either safe or hazardous.
Studies have been done, injury information has been compiled and the results always have been inconclusive.
The study most often cited concerning the use of aluminum bats was done by the Consumer Products Safety Commission in 2002. That study found nothing to show aluminum bats were a problem.
2002? Things change in milliseconds these days. Any study concerning safety in athletics done six years ago is long outdated.
Daniel A. Russell, an associate professor of applied physics at Kettering University in Flint, Mich., has done extensive studies on the performance of aluminum bats vs. wood bats. His work focuses on the science of bats, not the safety (http://www.kettering.edu/~drussell/bats.html).
Russell does note that, “an aluminum bat with the same weight as a wood bat will have a significantly lower inertia and can thus be swung faster than the wood bat.”
Bat speed determines the force with which the ball is propelled at pitchers and infielders. This would seem to be an argument against aluminum and for wood.
But things are not always as they seem. And that is why research on the safety of aluminum bats is needed.
The U.S. Congress has gotten deeply involved in sports in recent years. Often, that involvement concerns issues that affect a relatively small portion of the population.
Instead, our legislators should turn their attention to the millions of young children, teenagers and young adults who play amateur baseball and softball and use aluminum bats.
Instead of grandstanding with the big boys, Congress should fund an extensive study on aluminum bats, with the understanding that “inconclusive” is not an acceptable answer.
This can be done. It should be done. It should have been done years ago.