PSU Magazine Spring 2000

I f Sammy Sosa used a bat made by this Hillsboro manufacturer, he– not Mark McGwire-might be the current homerun king. Of course, he'd probably be thrown out of the game. DeMarini Sports wants to make ure its bats are good-but not too good– using a device developed by David Turcic, associate professor of mechanical engineering. But it's not the wooden bats used by baseball pros they're test– ing; it's DeMarini's aluminum softball bats that are on trial in Turcic's lab. The PSU engineer is measuring the performance of these revolutionary bats using specifications that cover more than 15 pages of fine print. For the sake of preventing brain freeze, the specs can be boiled down to: Launch softball at precisely 88 feet per second. Ensure that the ball does not spin. Ensure that the ball's smooth surface-not the area with stitching– strikes a bat precisely in the "sweet spot" (softball-speak for the area that gives a hit the greatest distance) . Measure the bat's horizontal rebound velocity. Develop whatever equipment you need to accomplish these things. Now go for it. This is just the sort of challenge Turcic relishes. The challenge for DeMarini started years before. In 1993 the company inventtd a double-wall aluminum bat that was so head-and-shoulders above the compe– tition it was banned from sanctioned play. Hollow aluminum bats give under ball impact and spring back. 12 PSU MAGAZINE SPRING 2000 This "trampoline effect" give aluminum bats much of their superior performance. DeMarini's double-wall bat had a sweet spot six times larger than other bats and a trampoline effect that hit performance levels out of the ballpark. These kind of design advancements are part of a chain of recent developments in the aluminum bat indu try. W hen aluminum bats burst onto baseball and softball diamonds in the 1970s, they improved perfor– mance slightly, but it was their superior durability that made them popular. Wood bats today cost about $50 and aluminum $180 to $300, but aluminum bats last up to five times as long, making them cheaper in the long run. As metal bat technology progressed in the '80s and '90s, engineers adopted exotic materials and designs for greater swing speed, distance, and durability. Innovations have included bats with a pressurized air chamber; bats made from scandium, a rare and expensive metal used in Soviet aerospace; bats developed under the cryogenic process in temperatures as low as -300 degrees F to enhance quality and performance. There' even an aluminum bat designed to make a sound like the "crack" of a wood bat-not the unnat– ural sounding "ping" that most aluminum bats make. However, uch innovations proved a little too successful. Teri Mariani, head coach of PSU's women's softball team, has played with wood and aluminum bats and under- tands the issue. (Coincidentally, DeMarini supplies free equipment to PSU's women's softball team.) Softballs, Mariani says, are now made to be "livelier"-harder, that is-which, combined with ever– increasing improvements in aluminum bats, results in the ball coming off the bat at tremendous speed. Softball fields are smaller than baseball fields; after release the pitcher stands a mere 35 feet away from the batter and fir t and third base player are only 45 feet away during play. All of which makes the improved performance of the aluminum bat dangerous. "A lot of times," Mariani says, "the ball flies so fast, you don't even know it went by." In 1997, a California youth was struck in the head by a ball hit from an aluminum bat. The ball fractured his kull, killing him. His death and injuries of others have persuaded several youth and semipro leagues to return to wood bats. Major league baseball has always stood by wood a a method to keep statistical comparisons on a level field. R ules-making bodies of oftball and college baseball grew increas– ingly concerned about the higher performance of aluminum bat , and outlawed certain improvement , such as titanium bat and DeMarini's double-wall bat. The porting goods industry argued that if the bats were too good, rather than ban them, the organizations should instead set regulating standards.