I love college baseball and this is the part of the year I get to enjoy some of the great games leading up to the College World Series.  The trek to Omaha is an awesome experience.  This week the teams were selected and I’m going to be glued to the tube in a couple of days.  I personally don’t have any favorites, but the UT team and the LSU teams are going to be tough to beat.  Who knows, maybe TCU can advance again.

I do have a debate, do aluminum bats still have a place in College Baseball?  There are two sides, the basic problem is the ball can come off the bat 30-40 miles an hour faster than a wooden bat.  How?  The aluminum bat is lighter and can be swung faster, increasing bat speed.  Bat speed is the basis for the power of the hitter.  This is pretty scary for the pitcher or third baseman when you are staring down a line drive at over a 100 miles an hour.  There are substantial head injuries it seems like almost every year.

The argument for the aluminum bat is primarily costs.  Wooden bats are not metal and can break pretty easily.  Some people simply enjoy the “ping” sound of the bat when the ball is hit.

I sit on the side of against aluminum bats.  I realize there are costs and some would say environmental issues, but I’m a little bit of a purist.  I’ve played in games with both and I preferred the wooden bat even though the ball didn’t go as far.  The other reason is someone will get killed at some point soon.  Aren’t lives worth more than the couple of hundred dollars per team?  It sounds drastic, but watch how hard the ball comes off the bat the next couple of weeks.

How do you feel?