Which wood is best? That is the great debate!
Maple - Maple bats burst onto the scene shortly after Barry Bonds 2001 season where he hit 73 homeruns using a maple model 73. Originally maple had too high of a moisture content which resulted in wood that was too heavy to be turned into a viable baseball bat. Thanks to recent techonology in the wood drying process we are able to lower the moisture content enough tinto useable wood baseball bats.
Maple itself is a very hard, dense wood and a majority of maple bats are made from rock or sugar maple. The surface hardness is about 20% greater than ash. The harder the surface the faster the ball will jump off the bat. This is one of the main reason maple has became so popualr along with the success of Barry Bonds. Maple is a tight grainded hard wood, where ash is not. The tightness of the grain in maple makes it not as easy to see and will not have grains that are clearly visible like you do in ash. These characteristics make it so a maple bat will not flake, separate, or splinter resulting in a longer lasting, more durable wood bat.
Ash on the other hand does flex. When a ball is hit with an ash bat there is a trampoline affect. The ball doesn't just jump off; it first compresses the wood, then like a spring board it leaves with much more force than maple. This spring board affect is one of ash's greatest strengths and weaknesses. The spring board and compression traits of an ash bat will in time cause the grains to separate over time. The flex of an ash bat will appear to have a larger sweet spot. Ash bats do not snap the way a maple bat does. Ash bats will break just as easy, but usually they just wear out. The grain of an ash bat will delaminate over many uses.
Birch is tougher than ash, more flexible than maple. This hard hitting imported wood does not flake like ash and out performs maple. A lighter wood, birch allows athletes to swing larger barrel bats through the hitting zone. After two seasons of extensive game play testing in the Cape Cod Baseball Summer League and the Alaskan League, a player is quoted as saying, "Maple is a thing of the past." Birch bats have become a viable choice. However, many of our customers own bats of all three types of wood so they can select the right bat for the each play.
Bamboo Coming Soon |
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