Wooden Baseball Bats - Wooden Racquets: a brief analogy

JDogg

JDogg

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Why is it that kids playing baseball their whole lives using aluminum bats have to make the transition to wood bats when they turn pro?

Would tennis benefit from this type of transition or have we become too enamored with blistering forehands and servebots?

Today's players are grown men who are bigger stronger and faster than they have been historically, surely they could adapt to a change.

I would like to see today's pros play a few tourneys all with wood, and then decide for myself based on the level of competition.

Also, I just personally think it would be interesting to see today's racquet technology combined with wood craftsmanship of yesteryear to produce ~400g 100sq in sticks and what they would look like.
 
JDogg said:
Why is it that kids playing baseball their whole lives using aluminum bats have to make the transition to wood bats when they turn pro?

Would tennis benefit from this type of transition or have we become too enamored with blistering forehands and servebots?

Today's players are grown men who are bigger stronger and faster than they have been historically, surely they could adapt to a change.

I would like to see today's pros play a few tourneys all with wood, and then decide for myself based on the level of competition.

Also, I just personally think it would be interesting to see today's racquet technology combined with wood craftsmanship of yesteryear to produce ~400g 100sq in sticks and what they would look like.
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Interesting point, but I think that with pro baseball it's more of a rules issue, whereas in tennis, no such rule exists to force you to use a racquet made of a specific material such as wood. Also, baseball is a totally different sport with a multitude of positions, whereas in tennis, especially singles, it's just a one on one battle. If you and your opponent both play with a modern racquet, with modern strings, then neither one of you has a distinct advantage in terms of equipment over the other one, right? It comes down to who's the better, more fit player. In baseball if you allowed the batters to use aluminum bats, the pitchers would suffer to a degree that might possibly ruin the game in it's entirety. There have already been enough changes to the game over the years, such as lowering the mound, altering the dimensions of ball parks, etc. that have effectively made the game more offensive. There's also rumblings that there might be more changes on the horizon to make the game more "interesting" by having a higher percentage of balls being put into play, more runs being scored, etc. Essentially, the casual fans would prefer to see a shootout at the ballpark, instead of a 1-0 or 2-1 type of game. However, there's no way in hell they are going to change the wooden bats rule though.

Also there's just something about the sound of the ball off a wooden bat that's so much sweeter than the annoying "ping" you hear when an aluminum bat contacts the ball.
 
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Ronaldo said:
Recall playing a match against a guy using a 15 oz Kramer with a 5 1/4" grip. We both knew who brought the big stick out that day.
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15 oz?! I hope his arm fell off after the match. ;)

I imagine if you were using a pretty modern racquet, you could blow him off the court. The thing about wooden racquets is that they give you amazing control with the heavier weight and smaller headsize, but you lose so much power it's beyond a joke.
 
Big_Dangerous said:
Interesting point, but I think that with pro baseball it's more of a rules issue, whereas in tennis, no such rule exists to force you to use a racquet made of a specific material such as wood. Also, baseball is a totally different sport with a multitude of positions, whereas in tennis, especially singles, it's just a one on one battle. If you and your opponent both play with a modern racquet, with modern strings, then neither one of you has a distinct advantage in terms of equipment over the other one, right? It comes down to who's the better, more fit player. In baseball if you allowed the batters to use aluminum bats, the pitchers would suffer to a degree that might possibly ruin the game in it's entirety. There have already been enough changes to the game over the years, such as lowering the mound, altering the dimensions of ball parks, etc. that have effectively made the game more offensive. There's also rumblings that there might be more changes on the horizon to make the game more "interesting" by having a higher percentage of balls being put into play, more runs being scored, etc. Essentially, the casual fans would prefer to see a shootout at the ballpark, instead of a 1-0 or 2-1 type of game. However, there's no way in hell they are going to change the wooden bats rule though.

Also there's just something about the sound of the ball off a wooden bat that's so much sweeter than the annoying "ping" you hear when an aluminum bat contacts the ball.
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I think its more of a *edit*tradition and/or safety issue than a rules issue. If it were a rules issue, they could just change the rules. (if they wanted). This post is purely just for speculation and I realize it won't ever happen, I'm just curious as to how it would play out.
 
JDogg said:
I think its more of a *edit*tradition and/or safety issue than a rules issue. If it were a rules issue, they could just change the rules. (if they wanted). This post is purely just for speculation and I realize it won't ever happen, I'm just curious as to how it would play out.
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If you're referring to MLB, then yes it is absolutely a rule. Also, the issue is that baseball, like tennis, is a sacred game. They aren't going to change a rule of that magnitude unless they have to for some unforeseen reason.
 
Big_Dangerous said:
15 oz?! I hope his arm fell off after the match. ;)

I imagine if you were using a pretty modern racquet, you could blow him off the court. The thing about wooden racquets is that they give you amazing control with the heavier weight and smaller headsize, but you lose so much power it's beyond a joke.
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This was BITD when a modern racquet was a Head XRC or Prince Graphite. He had long, slow strokes..................................and lots of power. Ball could knock your racquet out of your hand.
 
Ronaldo said:
This was BITD when a modern racquet was a Head XRC or Prince Graphite. He had long, slow strokes..................................and lots of power. Ball could knock your racquet out of your hand.
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I've never had that happen, lol, although I have had the racquet slip out of my hands when conditions were hot and humid, and I have caught a ball in the throat of my racquet a couple times, lol.
 
Big_Dangerous said:
Interesting point, but I think that with pro baseball it's more of a rules issue, whereas in tennis, no such rule exists to force you to use a racquet made of a specific material such as wood. Also, baseball is a totally different sport with a multitude of positions, whereas in tennis, especially singles, it's just a one on one battle. If you and your opponent both play with a modern racquet, with modern strings, then neither one of you has a distinct advantage in terms of equipment over the other one, right? It comes down to who's the better, more fit player. In baseball if you allowed the batters to use aluminum bats, the pitchers would suffer to a degree that might possibly ruin the game in it's entirety. There have already been enough changes to the game over the years, such as lowering the mound, altering the dimensions of ball parks, etc. that have effectively made the game more offensive. There's also rumblings that there might be more changes on the horizon to make the game more "interesting" by having a higher percentage of balls being put into play, more runs being scored, etc. Essentially, the casual fans would prefer to see a shootout at the ballpark, instead of a 1-0 or 2-1 type of game. However, there's no way in hell they are going to change the wooden bats rule though.

Also there's just something about the sound of the ball off a wooden bat that's so much sweeter than the annoying "ping" you hear when an aluminum bat contacts the ball.
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These quotes could be applied to tennis even without the wood/graphite issue. "It's a rule" is not an argument, since there's some sort of logic or justification behind the rule, and tennis already has a number of restrictive rules regarding racquets, so adding another one would just require its own individual logic -- which, I think it could be argued, would sound a lot like the logic behind the rule against aluminum bats in MLB.
 
bjsnider said:
These quotes could be applied to tennis even without the wood/graphite issue. "It's a rule" is not an argument, since there's some sort of logic or justification behind the rule, and tennis already has a number of restrictive rules regarding racquets, so adding another one would just require its own individual logic -- which, I think it could be argued, would sound a lot like the logic behind the rule against aluminum bats in MLB.
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https://www.reference.com/sports-ac...lb-players-use-aluminum-bats-c443401844aeef3b

/argument
 
There are some differences. In baseball, the more power the better because the further you hit the ball the better. Pro ball players with aluminum bats would be home run contests. In tennis, there is a baseline so too much power is a bad thing.

There are relatively few adults playing baseball. Most transition at some point to softball where the power can be offset by restricted flight balls to keep things more fair.
 
bigserving said:
There are some differences. In baseball, the more power the better because the further you hit the ball the better. Pro ball players with aluminum bats would be home run contests. In tennis, there is a baseline so too much power is a bad thing.

There are relatively few adults playing baseball. Most transition at some point to softball where the power can be offset by restricted flight balls to keep things more fair.
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Yeah I mostly see adults playing in softball leagues, so it's probably harder to hit the heavier+larger softballs 350+ feet on the regular, than to hit the smaller+lighter baseballs that far.
 
Big_Dangerous said:
If you're referring to MLB, then yes it is absolutely a rule. Also, the issue is that baseball, like tennis, is a sacred game. They aren't going to change a rule of that magnitude unless they have to for some unforeseen reason.
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I wasn't questioning if it was a rule that wood bats were required in MLB. And if you read my post I said that it was a tradition issue to go along with your comment about it being a sacred game. But in that same sense... If tennis were as sacred as baseball, why did they allow a major change in racquet material after hundreds of years of using wood?


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JDogg said:
I wasn't questioning if it was a rule that wood bats were required in MLB. And if you read my post I said that it was a tradition issue to go along with your comment about it being a sacred game. But in that same sense... If tennis were as sacred as baseball, why did they allow a major change in racquet material after hundreds of years of using wood?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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It's not so much a question of why they allowed a change, but more of the fact that they simply didn't really have the capability of producing metal/graphite racquets before the 1970's.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2577483/

As far as I know, the ITF never had a rule about what racquets could be made out of, only about the racquet length and head size, which has since been amended.
 
nowhereman said:
Yeah, a lot of Latin Americans love it too. I think there are or have been quite a few big Latin American names in the MLB if I'm not mistaken.
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there are a ton of dominican superstars as well as a fair number of cubans and venezuelans.
 
metsman said:
there are a ton of dominican superstars as well as a fair number of cubans and venezuelans.
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I was looking on Wikipedia at the list of Dominican born players, and I was like, okay so half the country plays in the MLB, lol. :D

Seriously, that list is outrageous! Cuba and Venezuela have quite a few players too, including my hometown favorite Jose Altuve!
 
JDogg said:
Would the laminate start coming undone? or is it more like how strings just become dead after hitting for so long?
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The racquet lost its resiliency, flex, life IMHO. Everything that folks rave about in a Prestige was the norm with wood. But re-stringing took some of the magic away.
 
JDogg said:
Also, I just personally think it would be interesting to see today's racquet technology combined with wood craftsmanship of yesteryear to produce ~400g 100sq in sticks and what they would look like.
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107 sq inch of wood
prince-woodie.jpg
 
College players are basically full grown men. They play with aluminum, not too many deaths per year. There are restrictions on the aluminum bats.


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JDogg said:
Why is it that kids playing baseball their whole lives using aluminum bats have to make the transition to wood bats when they turn pro?

Would tennis benefit from this type of transition or have we become too enamored with blistering forehands and servebots?

Today's players are grown men who are bigger stronger and faster than they have been historically, surely they could adapt to a change.

I would like to see today's pros play a few tourneys all with wood, and then decide for myself based on the level of competition.

Also, I just personally think it would be interesting to see today's racquet technology combined with wood craftsmanship of yesteryear to produce ~400g 100sq in sticks and what they would look like.
Click to expand...

Tennis is past wood, the game is played completely different and therefore there is no need to transition. There exists woodie tourneys, they fun events and hold no value. That's how it will remain. There is more chance the ITF /ATP restrict string material than racquet and that's very unlikely to occur in the near future. It's more likely ball pressure and weight are varied which can be done within the existing rules and still effect play. As far as expecting the top players to change to wood for interests sake it's not happening. I doubt recreational players would want to play with a 65 woodie as the number of woodie tourney are very low I can't find anyone at my club interested even if it was their era. Most of the bring back woodie tournament comments seem to be about forcing the current Top 10 to play with woodie just to mix it up. It feels a little like making them dance for giggles sake. They're professional tennis players, if you want to see more woodie tournaments then push for recreational competition, but there's little demand.
 
JDogg said:
College players are basically full grown men. They play with aluminum, not too many deaths per year. There are restrictions on the aluminum bats.


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First of all, no.

Second of all, those college ball fields and the dimensions are very different than Major league ball parks.
 
@JDogg I'm just going to leave this here, because I've already provided you with more than sufficient reasons as to why they don't use aluminum bats in the major leagues, and why it's not going to happen, perhaps ever. Also, for what it's worth, there's a lot of talk about getting rid of aluminum bats in college baseball as well.

 
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