Once, a Baseball Bat Review by a player, consisted of a trip to the small neighborhood sporting goods store, finding a wooden bat which the player could swing and verifying the signature of the barrel of the bat was of someone famous.
If two bats were of equal weight and length, the signature determined which was bought, because who would want a Joe Blow signed bat when there was a Mickey Mantle to be had for the same price.

That was then, this is now, and that same trip consists of traveling several miles to the mall, walking a mile from the parking lot to the Super Mega Sports Store, which sells millions of items for all sports, many you may not have even heard of.

That’s not all bad, maybe even interesting, but wait until you finally arrive at the baseball bats section. There very well could be thousands of baseball bats hanging neatly arranged on wall after wall. Different colors, different handles, different barrels, different everything. Here’s where a chemical engineering degree would be quite useful as it appears none of these bats are made of the same material.

Let’s look at trying to understand today’s modern baseball bat, a sort of youth baseball bat review, which will help us choose the best baseball bat for us.

In the beginning, there was wood, period. That’s what all bats were made of, although they may be maple or ash or another type of wood, but they were all wood of some sort.

However, Modern baseball bats are broken into three basic groups of composition, Wood, Aluminum & Graphite/Titanium lined. Let’s examine the pros and cons of each type of bat due to their composition.

The aluminum bat is light, which allows for increased bat speed and control by the player. Traditionally, the baseball will travel 2% to 5% farther when hit with an aluminum bat than other bats comprised of various materials.

Because of this added bonus of power, the bats will cost more than most other bats, but are extremely durable and very rarely ever break. Your hands may endure an incredibly powerful and numbing stinger from an inside fastball on a cold day, but the bat will not break.

Due to the different mixtures of zinc, copper, magnesium and aluminum the “sweet spot” of the bat’s hitting zone is larger, thusly more forgiving of a swing which does not solidly hit the ball. A hit off the handle, which should have been a weak pop fly to the second baseman, turns into a looping Texas league base hit instead.

Bats comprised of Graphite/Titanium lining are actually thin walled aluminum bats wrapped with these two compounds. By allowing the already light weight aluminum to be replaced with lighter still, graphite and titanium, the bat becomes lighter yet.

This weight reduction further increases the speed of the batter’s swing allowing for better bat control and increases the velocity the ball comes off the bat. The addition of these two compounds also increase the bat’s durability which is imperative to maintaining the integrity of the bat’s “sweet spot.”

A word of caution when purchasing graphite/titanium bats. Many baseball leagues, including colleges, are banning certain types of these bats because the ball comes off the bat with such velocity it is becoming a safety issue for players, especially in the older aged divisions. Check with your league before forking out $300 for a bat you can’t use.

The original wood bat completes the three categories and other than being offered in a greater variety of shape and taper for a player’s individual taste, there’s not much that can be said in comparison to the composite bats.

One saving factor for wood bats is they are the only type of bat allowed at the major league level. So if you want to try and impress a major league scout use a wooden bat to hit the ball 350′ while the other competitors are hitting the ball 400′ with a composite bat. The scout knows the other players will drop to 320′ with a wood bat. Just something to keep in the back of your mind.

Author Bio: Jim (Coach) Bain is a former Minor League Baseball Player and successful Coach of Youth Baseball for over a decade and a half. He has drawn from fellow successful coaches’ experiences and combined them with his own extensive experience to create a Baseball Teaching Website. The site is packed with 100s of tips, drills, history and instruction on how to play and coach the game of baseball. http://www.Learn-Youth-Baseball-Coaching.com

Category: Sports
Keywords: baseball bat review, youth baseball bat review, best bat, youth bat, baseball bat, bat tip, bat info