April 7, 2009
by Jason@IIATMS
Fearing the potential horror that would come from a shattered maple bat, Adam Dunn has switched back to ash, stats be damned. Good for him.
“Maple is too dangerous . . . I switched last June,” Dunn said. “Those bats shatter. One of them is going to end up sticking out of somebody’s neck. Maybe [a fan] in the stands. I’m not being that guy that did it.”With those words, Dunn may be the first player in baseball who has rejected the lethal maple bats that are a tragedy waiting to happen. The whole sport knows it. It’s being “studied.”
“
Using the ash probably does take away some homers, probably. If you don’t quite get it, miss it a little, it doesn’t go as far,” said Dunn. “I’ll take one, two, three less homers and not have my name on the barrel of the bat sticking in somebody. I saw a [shattered] bat go around an umpire’s head last year.”
In case you haven’t been paying attention, my thoughts on the maple bat “situation”:
