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Sorry folks, this post is not really about Web 2.0, but I hope you read it, share it and hopefully do something about it.  It's important.

It is about a subject I know all too well.  The danger of metal baseball bats on Little League-sized diamonds -- thank you Duff Wilson for the outstanding piece in the New York Times today.

My son Andrew is the luckiest kid in Massachusetts.  Three years ago, while he was pitching for his 11-12 year old Little League team, he left a fastball out over the plate to a skinny little 12 year-old swinging a metal bat manufactured by Easton.  Fractions (literally tenths) of a second later, his life nearly changed forever as his was hit with a frozen rope line drive between the eyes. His nose was shattered (bones literally pointing in different directions), his eyes shut, his forehead grotesquely swollen and sheets of blood dripping down his uniform and puddling up on the pitcher's mound beneath him.  Yes, he was the lucky one who did not die like Brandon Patch (line drive to the temple in his final HS game), suffer a life-changing brain injury like 12-year old Steven Domalewski who took a line drive in the chest, or a broken eye (orbital) socket like John Baggs, Jr., All Star Little League pitcher from Staten Island. 

He lived and we began to tell his story -- first to the Massachusetts State Legislature, who held the first ever public hearing on the issue (August 2006) in front of scores of television cameras -- but shamefully failed to even issue a report as far as I know.  

Then to the New Jersey Assembly (thank you Assemblyman Patrick Diegnan, D) and the New York City Council (thank you Councilman James Oddo, R) where one bill is still held up, the other is now law (wood only in NYC HS).

During those months in 2006, I also had an opportunity to meet in person with Little League President Steven Keener who lied through his teeth when he insisted, "metal bats and wood bats perform the same."  Keener has since hired President Bush's former spokesman Ari Fleisher (who I understand used to play in an adult wood bat league himself) to spin his deceitful and dangerous story as part of the "Don't Take My Bat Away" coalition which seems to mock baseball people, physicists and parents who believe wood is safer and better baseball with displays like this on their website --

While today's piece in the Times depicts the stories of more broken bones and near misses, the good news is that every year more and more Little Leagues are playing with wood bats (changes made at the local level) and new, scientific testing is at work that will soon prove our case correct and Keener, Fleisher and Little League's case to be wrong (as if two eyes are not enough).

The Little League test, called Bat Performance Factor, was created in the mid-1990s by Richard A. Brandt, a New York University physics professor who has since retired. Brandt has the only Little League authorized lab, where he has tested youth bats since 2001.

The test measures the speed of a ball fired at a bat and the speed of the bat recoiling in a pivot assembly. From those numbers it calculates the springiness of a bat. The test does not account for swing speed and does not measure the outgoing ball speed, but Brandt said it remained a true test of a bat because those other factors could vary widely.

Brandt said the recent changes to the test more accurately measure the sweet spot and take into account a break-in period for composite material bats, which become more powerful with age. In early results, he said, 30 percent of previously legal youth bats failed the new test.

We talk a lot at SocialSphere about giving people some power.  Hopefully that's what will happen here a little bit -- if you are involved in local sports, please pass today's New York Times article on to your local Little League board.  There's lots of insights and options here -- from total ban to compromise (1- use metal for younger kids, wooden for older, which is what our town chose to do with good success, or 2-ban the 30% that are most dangerous).  The point is DO SOMETHING.

What I want is simple -- kids to play baseball, learn the game, have fun while in an environment that is as safe and as true to the game as possible.  And even if you don't buy the safety argument, talk to any real baseball person, and they will tell you that wood bats produce better players and better baseball.

Thankfully Andrew is back to doing what he loves to do, playing baseball as much as he can.  He has graduated to the big diamond now, catching and playing infield most of the time -- and pitching on occasion.  I'm not as worried for my son as most big diamond leagues in Massachusetts mandate heavier (i.e., safer) bats and the distances are much greater allowing for more reflex time -- but until Little League alleviates the current problem, I will never watch a small diamond game in the same way.

And lastly, if anyone doesn't believe that the metal bat manufacturers are knowingly making higher performance bats (which need to be approved by Steven Keener and Little League International) and marketing them to Little Leaguers that are more dangerous than ever before, check out this piece of marketing copy, which warns 10, 11 and 12 year olds pitchers to BEWARE. 

Pitchers beware… The TechZilla XP is back and coming to a field near you! Youth Baseball Approved for Little League and all other youth associations Minus 9 Swing Weight 

Classy, don't you think.

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