HOLLANDER: Let’s see … they make tanks out of metal, not wood. John Deere tractors are metal. Snow plows? Metal. Bullets? Metal. So what type of moron defends the use of metal baseball bats by reasoning that there is no proof that metal bats hit a baseball harder than wood bats? That would be Yankees pitcher Mike Mussina and Easton Sports, a leading bat maker from California, that opposed the New York City Council bill on banning metal bats in New York City high schools. The bill passed 40-6. I don’t know about you, C.J., but it’s a happy day in my house when the morons lose.
Moms, dads and kids of all ages should thank Staten Island Council Member James S. Oddo for winning his six-year battle against powerful lobby and PR firms who were protecting nothing else but the financial interest of metal bat makers. Kids have gotten killed with these bats. What else do you need to know? No amount of cost-saving justifies that risk.
They introduced metal bats in the 1970s as a cost-saving measure. Why? Because wood bats break. They break because they’re not as strong as metal bats. Does this really need proving? Hell, every child knows that you if hit a ball with a metal bat it goes father than with a wood one. If they had metal bats in Major League Baseball, you would not only have a dead ball era, a live ball era and steroid era: You’d have a metal bat era.
Baseball is meant to be played with wooden bats. Isn’t the crack of the wood bat much more of a baseball sound than the ping of aluminum? Is there any visual statement more intimidating than when a power pitcher shatters the bat in a hitter’s hands? C.J., I know for your transgressions you’ve been knee-capped a few times with both metal and wood bats. Which do you fear more?
SULLIVAN: Someone took a bat to my March Madness NCAA Brackets and laid them all to waste. I had the Wisconsin Badgers winning it all. I can’t pick an apple, never mind a Final Four team.
As for bats, Hollander, you remain a Luddite. You have too many bats in that belfry you call a brain. The only question I have is whether to hit you with a metal or wooden bat. In your mind, baseball should be played on verdant fields with tow headed young boys dreaming of the Major Leagues and running through a neat and manicured outfield after a ball is hit from a classic wooden bat full of pine tar. Baseball is and was a city game usually played on crappy fields in the inner city.
Is Rep. Oddo from Staten Island going to put the money up for the scores of broken wooden bats in poorer districts in this city? Will he fund the South Bronx leagues that are going to go broke with trying to replace all the broken wood bats? I played Little League in the Bronx and we had a number of games called because the bats broke and the league had no money that day to pay for new ones.
It always comes down to the green. Kids have gotten killed from balls hit off metal bats. Kids have also been killed from balls hit from wooden bats. There is no science backing up the dangers of metal bats. Oddo and the other lackeys on the city council love measures like these because then they get their names in the paper and their mugs on TV.
You keep your antiquated views on metal bats. I bet you still think baseball was really “invented” in Cooperstown. It wasn’t. Read George Vescey’s new book Baseball for a history lesson on the lies told about the “rural legend” of baseball.
I am down with the poor leagues in the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens and upper Manhattan, where a metal bat will last for years. Who cares that the sound of a ball hit with metal has that false ping sound? Has any kid in New York City died from a baseball hit off of a metal bat? The answer to that is: No. So why the hell does the city council even have a dog in this fight?
HOLLANDER: Metal bats came on the scene in the ’70s, which coincides with the start of a well documented and disturbingly steady 30-year drop in the number of African-Americans playing collegiate and professional baseball. This “emergency” has prompted the creation of a national response organization called Reviving Baseball in Inner Cities (“RBI”). So I guess your argument about metal bats being the lynchpin for the development of urban baseball players kind of sucks, doesn’t it?
It must be somewhat disquieting to find yourself on the same side of an issue as that prick Mussina. John Franco, a beloved Brooklyn native, testified in support of the ban. Who would you rather go to a ball game with: Mussina or Franco?
I give Council Member James Oddo and the New York City Council credit for becoming the first legislative body in the country to pass such a ban. I say shame on Little League International and the New York Catholic High Schools Athletic Association who opposed the ban, putting their own financial interests ahead of the safety of their kids.
Don’t you cherish colorful old baseball sayings that double for sexual innuendos like “he’s really swinging the lumber” or “he got some good wood on it”? (By the way, is “Randy Johnson” the most overlooked porn handle ever?) Some things in sports are not meant to change. NBA commissioner David Stern tried to appease PETA-types this year by replacing the leather basketball with a synthetic rubber ball. He started a league-wide revolt, forcing him to change back to leather.
Baseball is all about the wooden bat. You want metal? Go to a softball game or make that long overdue trip to an orthodontist.
SULLIVAN: Equating metal baseball bats with the drop in black baseball players is just ludicrous. Dave, I played Little League into the ’70s with actual black kids—you know those kids you only saw on TV from your suburban Whitelandia where you grew up. Baseball fell out of favor amongst black in the ’80s—and every other race as well—when basketball and football took over the sports scene. Metal bats had nothing to do with it.
I agree with you that the metal bat argument is suspect because of Mike Mussina. He is a preening fake intellectual, so I am not comfortable siding with him. But my friend, Jose Garcia, a Little League coach in the Bronx, tells me his league will not be able to pay for wooden bats this year. I told Garcia that any money garnered from this column would be donated by you to support the wooden bat movement. Put your money where your mouth is, Hollander. Prepare to pony up some gelt to Garcia.
Moms, dads and kids of all ages should thank Staten Island Council Member James S. Oddo for winning his six-year battle against powerful lobby and PR firms who were protecting nothing else but the financial interest of metal bat makers. Kids have gotten killed with these bats. What else do you need to know? No amount of cost-saving justifies that risk.
They introduced metal bats in the 1970s as a cost-saving measure. Why? Because wood bats break. They break because they’re not as strong as metal bats. Does this really need proving? Hell, every child knows that you if hit a ball with a metal bat it goes father than with a wood one. If they had metal bats in Major League Baseball, you would not only have a dead ball era, a live ball era and steroid era: You’d have a metal bat era.
Baseball is meant to be played with wooden bats. Isn’t the crack of the wood bat much more of a baseball sound than the ping of aluminum? Is there any visual statement more intimidating than when a power pitcher shatters the bat in a hitter’s hands? C.J., I know for your transgressions you’ve been knee-capped a few times with both metal and wood bats. Which do you fear more?
SULLIVAN: Someone took a bat to my March Madness NCAA Brackets and laid them all to waste. I had the Wisconsin Badgers winning it all. I can’t pick an apple, never mind a Final Four team.
As for bats, Hollander, you remain a Luddite. You have too many bats in that belfry you call a brain. The only question I have is whether to hit you with a metal or wooden bat. In your mind, baseball should be played on verdant fields with tow headed young boys dreaming of the Major Leagues and running through a neat and manicured outfield after a ball is hit from a classic wooden bat full of pine tar. Baseball is and was a city game usually played on crappy fields in the inner city.
Is Rep. Oddo from Staten Island going to put the money up for the scores of broken wooden bats in poorer districts in this city? Will he fund the South Bronx leagues that are going to go broke with trying to replace all the broken wood bats? I played Little League in the Bronx and we had a number of games called because the bats broke and the league had no money that day to pay for new ones.
It always comes down to the green. Kids have gotten killed from balls hit off metal bats. Kids have also been killed from balls hit from wooden bats. There is no science backing up the dangers of metal bats. Oddo and the other lackeys on the city council love measures like these because then they get their names in the paper and their mugs on TV.
You keep your antiquated views on metal bats. I bet you still think baseball was really “invented” in Cooperstown. It wasn’t. Read George Vescey’s new book Baseball for a history lesson on the lies told about the “rural legend” of baseball.
I am down with the poor leagues in the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens and upper Manhattan, where a metal bat will last for years. Who cares that the sound of a ball hit with metal has that false ping sound? Has any kid in New York City died from a baseball hit off of a metal bat? The answer to that is: No. So why the hell does the city council even have a dog in this fight?
HOLLANDER: Metal bats came on the scene in the ’70s, which coincides with the start of a well documented and disturbingly steady 30-year drop in the number of African-Americans playing collegiate and professional baseball. This “emergency” has prompted the creation of a national response organization called Reviving Baseball in Inner Cities (“RBI”). So I guess your argument about metal bats being the lynchpin for the development of urban baseball players kind of sucks, doesn’t it?
It must be somewhat disquieting to find yourself on the same side of an issue as that prick Mussina. John Franco, a beloved Brooklyn native, testified in support of the ban. Who would you rather go to a ball game with: Mussina or Franco?
I give Council Member James Oddo and the New York City Council credit for becoming the first legislative body in the country to pass such a ban. I say shame on Little League International and the New York Catholic High Schools Athletic Association who opposed the ban, putting their own financial interests ahead of the safety of their kids.
Don’t you cherish colorful old baseball sayings that double for sexual innuendos like “he’s really swinging the lumber” or “he got some good wood on it”? (By the way, is “Randy Johnson” the most overlooked porn handle ever?) Some things in sports are not meant to change. NBA commissioner David Stern tried to appease PETA-types this year by replacing the leather basketball with a synthetic rubber ball. He started a league-wide revolt, forcing him to change back to leather.
Baseball is all about the wooden bat. You want metal? Go to a softball game or make that long overdue trip to an orthodontist.
SULLIVAN: Equating metal baseball bats with the drop in black baseball players is just ludicrous. Dave, I played Little League into the ’70s with actual black kids—you know those kids you only saw on TV from your suburban Whitelandia where you grew up. Baseball fell out of favor amongst black in the ’80s—and every other race as well—when basketball and football took over the sports scene. Metal bats had nothing to do with it.
I agree with you that the metal bat argument is suspect because of Mike Mussina. He is a preening fake intellectual, so I am not comfortable siding with him. But my friend, Jose Garcia, a Little League coach in the Bronx, tells me his league will not be able to pay for wooden bats this year. I told Garcia that any money garnered from this column would be donated by you to support the wooden bat movement. Put your money where your mouth is, Hollander. Prepare to pony up some gelt to Garcia.
