Submitted by Bill Harris, Aug 29, 2007 16:35

So Easton spent over $100k lobbying and NYC Mayor Bloomberg vetoed the bat ban, but the NYC city council had the votes to override the veto. Easton also has a lobbyist assigned to Williamsport. The problem is that it is difficult to demonstrate the absence of an event in a statistically significant way when there is no control group.

No evidence exists to show the additional safety risks from aluminum bats because there is no way to design an empirical experiment; no one uses wooden bats any more in a broad rec league application. The rare instance of wood bats being used at a youth level are in higher level wood-bat travel tourneys and the results of those experiences do not translate cleanly for the general rec league case. Although the sign of the relationship indicates a more dangerous result from metal, the sample size is too small to create a significant result.

However, the coefficient of restitution from a wooden bat is far, far lower than that of a metal bat. Listening to LL tell us that there is no evidence of enhanced danger of using aluminum bats is akin to listening to the tobacco companies tell us there is no evidence that smoking causes cancer. It is a convenient result of a lack of opportunity for good quality empirical analysis.

I understand LL not wanting to ban aluminum bats, but their position of denial is untenable.

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