When Louis Brandeis rhapsodized about “laboratories of democrac y ” and Alexis de Tocqueville celebrated pragmatism in local politics, they couldn’t have imagined the arcane arguments over what bats to use in amateur baseball leagues.

But the City Council’s legislation banning metal bats in high school baseball games provides a case study in local policy setting.

Critics of the bill, sponsored by a Republican council member from Staten Island, James Oddo, say the City Council has more important issues to address.

But Joe Domalewski, the father of a boy incapacitated by a line drive off a metal bat, told me, “I can’t believe that anyone would keep producing these bats when they’re this dangerous. But they do. And maybe the only way to prevent awful injuries like this is to ban these bats.”

Thirteen-year-old Steven Domalewski was pitching in a Police Athletic League game in Wayne, N.J., last June when he took a shot to the chest that knocked him to the ground. The ball’s impact stopped his heart, cutting off oxygen to his brain. He was in a coma for almost a month, and his recovery has been slow.

Mr. Domalewski, a high school teacher, testified for the council bill because the council offered the only opportunity for him to challenge the equipment that poses lethal dangers to millions of youngsters.

Youth leagues started using aluminum bats in the 1970s to cut down on equipment expenses and protect players from splinters flying off broken bats. Metal bats cost more, but they lasted longer.

Starting in the 1980s, bat producers began engineering a lot more pop into the bats. They used various metal compounds, designed the barrel for greater “trampoline effect,” and even pumped gas into the bats to generate greater speed and distance on batted balls. Marketing campaigns boast that hitters will hit rockets with the new bats.

The problem is that those rockets can hurt pitchers and other players. With the standard 60-foot-6-inch distance from the mound to the plate, pitchers have less than four-tenths of a second to react to hits. In the competition that leads to the Little League World Series, line drives travel anywhere from 65 mph to over 80 mph. In high school and pro ball, line drives range from just under 80 mph to as high as 110 mph.

Most amateur leagues have adopted complex standards to ensure that metal bats don’t produce more of a bounce than wood bats. But when the National Collegiate Athletic Association adopted more meaningful regulations in 1998, Easton Sporting Goods sued for $267 million. The association backed off. Moreover, industry labs find ways to give the bats more pop within the regulations.

Almost everyone familiar with baseball believes that metal bats have become dangerous. Players who compete in wood-bat leagues, like the Cape Cod League, are amazed at how much power they lose. The problem is worse in organizations like Little League, where the distance from the mound to the plate is just 46 feet.

A physics professor at Kettering University in Flint, Mich., Daniel Russell, agrees that bats should be safer, but also suggests using softer balls.

“There are commercially available baseballs with lower compression that do far less damage upon impact with the human body than the balls currently used for Little League games,” Mr. Russell told me in an e-mail. “Even traveling at 110 miles an hour, these lower-compression balls cause far less severe injuries than harder balls traveling at the same speed.”

But bat makers always will seek to create ever more powerful equipment. Bat standards have to be part of any solution.

“There’s no question you could use softer balls, and that metal bats can have wood-bat properties,” says a physician at Lenox Hill Hospital, Stephen Nicholas, who testified in favor of the bill. “But you have to deal with the problem we have now. What matters is safety. …”

Is New York’s metal-bat ban another example of local overreaching?

Not really. Sometimes acting locally can force an issue. A local government certainly has the right to decide what equipment to buy for its schools.

Mr. Oddo, the council member, hopes New York’s action will spur local leagues to adopt new safety standards for bats and other sports equipment. Maybe if enough do so, the national manufacturers will pay attention.

Local action provides a wedge for raising controversial issues and a way to practice basic democracy. Local action also could prevent the corrosive cynicism that results when no one pays attention to problems like safety on the ballfield.

Steven Domalewski’s parents, for example, could have become bitter, but instead they chose to be constructive.

“I’m pleased,” Mr. Domalewski said of the City Council’s action. “I know that someone’s listening.”

Only recently has Steven moved an arm and smiled at bedside jokes. “We pray a lot,” Mr. Domalewski told me. “His mother stays home with him, so he is loved around the clock. Steve won’t allow us to give up. We are truly blessed.”

Mr. Euchner, author of “The Last Nine Innings” and “Little League, Big Dreams,” may be reached at euchner@gmail.com.