The myth of the trademark




Hitters today are plagued with the problem of wooden bat breaking. Nowhere is this more apparent than the recent major league maple bat dilemma. The dangerous fragmentation of maple bats that has resulted in serious injury has brought to light the dangers created when not paying attention to proper instruction of batsmen regarding the orientation of the edge grain at the point of contact. Most wood bat breakage problems can be solved by correctly orienting the logo (or trademark) to place the edge grain parallel to the flight of the baseball at the point of contact. This is the position that produces the least breakage and the greatest hitting power.

The traditional saying “upside down logo” has its origins in the early years of baseball when batters used a different style of batting. Hitters like Gehrig, Dimaggio, and others swung the bat more linearly and transferred more weight to the front foot. This forward momentum kept the upper body level and thus the bat’s barrel did not rotate. Today’s hitters use a rotational method to swing a bat. More weight is placed on the back leg with the batter rotating the torso. This causes the shoulders to lean towards the ball and creates the rotation of the barrel of the bat. The result is that today’s hitters tend to hit the flat grain of the bat more often and this results in breakage and loss of power.

To reduce breakage, hold the bat in front of you with the logo facing up (or towards you). Next, rotate the logo toward your forward shoulder (the shoulder closest to the pitcher). The more you kick with your back foot, the more you should swing the bat toward your forward shoulder. The maximum angle should be 45 degrees. You may want to put a mark on the bat once you get the ideal alignment. This should place your bat in the proper hitting position with the edge grain lined up perfectly to hit the ball. This proper alignment will not only dramatically decrease breakage, but will also increase hitting power due to the restriction of bat flex.

Other things you can do to reduce breakage include:

• Use a heavier bat. A -3 metal swinger is not equivalent to a -3 wooden swinger. The metal bat has greater resistance than light weight wood. -3 wood bats break more often than -2 wood bats. Remember, there are no -3 trees. To achieve lower weights you have to sacrifice density and that decreases strength. The ideal is to hit with a wooden bat that weighs the same as the length. A 33 “bat should weigh 33 oz. The difference between a uniform weight bat and a -3 is less than a hamburger, so go up and up in weight for best performance.

• You can also increase the diameter of the handle. Most wooden bat companies offer handles less than 1 “in diameter, which means the bat will break very easily. Old school handles were often larger than 1”, which made bats they were slightly heavier but reduced breakage. Plus, a larger diameter shank means less flex and that equates to more power.

Lastly, pitchers with a good fastball move can fire you on the inside and there’s not much you can do about it. But, most bats that break do so by hitting the outer pitch and, in particular, out of speed. You don’t have to throw the ball hard to break a bat. Hitting the last 2 “of the barrel causes the bat to flex excessively backwards and will fracture the bat near the hands and the break will form at the leading edge of the bat. By an internal fastball breaking at the edge escapement. An inside fastball hits the handle and stops the handle’s momentum. The barrel, which has more mass, continues forward and causes the bat to tilt forward in a U-shape. This causes the bat to break at the hands on the back edge. edge.

The key to hitting the outside pitch is hitting it from the back of the plate. This will allow the barrel to hit the ball solidly and drive it hard into the opposite field. Not timing the outside pitch properly causes badly hitting balls at the end of the bat, weak squiblers, broken bats, embarrassment, ridiculing, losing, you get an idea. Practice hitting for power in the opposite field. It can only be done by hitting the back of the plate. You should never start practicing hitting with inside pitches that you can throw. Always have the BP pitcher start with outside pitches and work the pitches in.

Recently, the MLB approved a series of wooden bat guidelines. In these guidelines was a requirement to place logos on the “face of the grain” rather than the edge grain. This would reduce breakage and, according to them, it would decrease performance. Interestingly, this method works for tearing because now, instead of players turning the front side of the grain toward the baseball, they now turn the edge of the grain toward it. Unless, of course, hitters know that the face-to-grain orientation causes decreased performance and they don’t put the logo up, but instead place the logo in front of the pitcher or catcher. We have observed that this is the case.

The corrective technique mentioned in this article could have achieved the same result without the widespread chaos and large amount of expense incurred by bat companies to comply with MLB sentences.

Remember, good technique and concentration reduces bat breakage and increases performance.

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