When Marc Johnson began his coaching career at Cherry Creek in 1972, the game of baseball looked very different. Stirrups were the uniform norm. Half batting helmets were considered safe. And everyone hit with a wood bat.
But the implementation of the aluminum bat into high school play in Colorado in 1974 — and the subsequent development of the aluminum bat into the primary hitting instrument of choice for high schoolers — forever changed the sport.
“It’s just a different game with aluminum, especially at the high school level, because there’s much less of an emphasis on pitching and defense,” Johnson said.
To understand the story behind the aluminum bat — and to understand why only New Mexico and New York City still play with wood in sanctioned high school competition — requires an understanding of the rapid development of aluminum bats, especially over the past two decades.
As demand for aluminum bats steadily increased throughout the 1980s and into the 1990s, so too did the technology. By the turn of the century, aluminum bats at the prep and college level had become so potent, they not only turned the game into a slugging contest, they became a safety concern.
The BESR (ball exit speed ratio) standard instituted by the NFHS in 2003 did little to quell the trampoline-like performance of aluminum bats, and so the hit parade continued throughout the 2000s, until the implementation of the BBCOR (batted ball coefficient of restitution) standard in 2011 that brought batters’ power back down to earth.
In layman’s terms, BBCOR bats are designed to produce batted balls at speeds no greater than when struck with wood — a reverse evolution.
All of which gives rise to a watercooler debate as the final weekend of the state baseball tournaments in Colorado get underway Friday and Saturday: Should high school baseball ditch the ping and bring back the crack of the wood bat?
“If they’ve gotten metal to be like wood, then why wouldn’t we just swing wood? And that’s how most of the coaches I know around here feel,” Johnson said. “But I also happen to know there’s a huge amount of profit and politics behind those aluminum bats too. It’s a multilayered issue.”
Baseball’s ideological divide
The question of whether Colorado high schools should switch back to wood is almost as polarizing as today’s political climate.
One faction — “old-school” baseball purists such as Johnson — sides with wood. That faction believes using wood bats produces a game more focused on fundamentals, and less on flash and synthetic power.
The other faction — led by the state association — has a different take. CHSAA commissioner Paul Angelico said switching to wood hasn’t been brought up at a baseball committee meeting for at least a decade, and that making a change would be “near impossible”.
“Wood bats would cost schools a fortune,” Angelico said. “Plus, it’s taken years for the metal bats to get where they are today and millions of dollars have been spent (testing) trying to get this right. Now that everybody’s on board with metal bats, to switch again would be neither politically correct or popular.”
New Mexico is the epitome of the wood-only school of belief. The state first went to wood in 2012 as part of a one-year trial period, a move catalyzed by the new BBCOR rules that season that would have required everyone to buy all new certified bats anyway.
“It started at the grass-roots level with a push by our coaches, and it was something where our coaches felt like it was good for the game,” said Dusty Young, associate director for the New Mexico Activities Association. “The safety concerns with aluminium were going to get ironed out with BBCOR, regardless, so the move was because we wanted to go to a more traditional, detail-oriented version of the game.”
And with the proliferation of the composite wood bat over the last half decade — sticks that are designed with reinforced carbon fiber polymer in the barrel, making them tougher to break than a normal wood bat — amateur baseball’s “pro-wood” faction also maintains cost and safety are nonissues.
“As far as cost goes, it’s more effective to use wood, believe it or not,” said Jim Haag, owner and founder of the Haag Bat Co. in Parker. “Parents are out there spending $300, $400 on metal bats every single year when wood composite is where they should go because they have warranties, they’re safer and won’t splinter. Plus, composites are economical and have to perform the same as metal.”
New Mexico has since made the use of wood bats a permanent rule, and Young echoed Haag’s sentiment in noting the switch had a decided effect on school budgets as well as on the length of games, which Young said have been shortened by an average of about 30 minutes.
“The feedback we’ve gotten from coaches and administrators is that now, instead of buying four team metal bats at $400 a pop, they can buy six composite woods for less than half the price,” Young said.
Other states have also experimented with wood, such as North Dakota, which switched both its classifications to wood in 2007, but the state has since returned to aluminum across the board. NDHSAA assistant executive director Justin Fletschock said the switch back was primarily because of cost — a direct contradiction of New Mexico’s experience.
“I think it’s true that metal bats are cheaper when you talk about the upfront cost, but as far as using a bat for consecutive years, a wood bat generally can’t do that,” Fletschock said. “The other thing is, we heard a lot from parents and administrators where kids were buying their own metal bats and wanted to be able to use them in the school season.”
Fletschock also noted that with a wood bat comes less offense, which then led to “a fear of our athletes missing recruiting opportunities because their stats are poor compared to players from other states who are using metal.”
The same minimized hitting has been seen in New York City, where wood bats became the norm in 2007 after the City Council enacted the “Bat Ordinance,” which prohibited the use of nonwood bats by players participating in high school-sponsored games within city boundaries.
“Certainly, the quality of hitting has gone way, way down,” said Wally Stampfel, baseball commissioner of the New York Catholic High School Activities Association. “Batting averages have, on average, dropped close to 100 points. … It’s made a significant impact.”
Colorado prep sluggers such as Legend senior Jordan Stubbings prefer aluminum, which is what they have grown up swinging.
“I’ve gotten used to a BBCOR, because my class was one of the first to use them all through middle and high school,” said Stubbings, who ranked second in Class 5A with 10 home runs this spring. “They’re more like a wood bat, and they play like a wood bat — but they also have more pop and more area for error in your swing than with a wood bat, so it would definitely change the high school game a lot if Colorado went to wood.”
Chances for wood in CHSAA play
For those in the Colorado high school baseball community who favor lumber, a switch makes sense considering local fall and summer ball is dominated by teams using wood bats, as are some of the best club tournaments and leagues in the state.
“There may be people who don’t understand high school baseball and how much wood bat there is outside of the high school season,” said Rocky Mountain coach Scott Bullock. “But for someone who’s knowledgeable about it, I don’t think cost, safety or availability of wood are valid arguments at all.”
Bullock said all the Class 5A and Class 4A programs he’s aware of don’t usually supply bats, and that a switch to wood wouldn’t be a hindrance to the Lobos’ athletic department budget.
“Kids all have their own bats, so it’s not a financial piece here,” he said.
And as long as BBCOR continues to prove to be a reliable safety measure, the NFHS doesn’t have any plans to exclude aluminum, either.
“We’re pleased with the current standard — but, when new science comes out, we’d be more than interested to hear what the science presents,” said Eliot Hopkins, the NFHS baseball rules editor and national interpreter. “We are ever-vigilant about minimizing risk when it comes to bats in baseball, so we’re not going to be complacent.”
For now, Colorado’s baseball purists must be patient with the pings and tings of aluminum.
“I would love to see our state (go to wood), but I don’t think it will happen while I’m around just because of the red tape it would take and the big business behind it,” Johnson said. “But, hey, I guess as long as we’re still playing baseball — wood bat or aluminum — we all can’t have too much to complain about.”
