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Why the Axe Bat, Dustin Pedroia may help make the round handle obsolete [View all]
http://sports.yahoo.com/news/why-dustin-pedroia-uses-the-axe-bat--which-may-make-the-round-handle-obsolete-013113798.htmlThe baseball bat is a brutish creation, a blunt instrument created to pummel a round ball. Never has anyone accused it of being some sort of technological marvel. It exists in almost the exact form it did when baseball first started a century and a half ago because even its earliest incarnations came pretty close to perfection.
Today's version looks about the same as it has for decades – maybe a little shorter and lighter, some with cupped barrels, all with the same round knob on the handle, save for a single bat of those used by the 750 major leaguers. It belongs to Boston Red Sox second baseman Dustin Pedroia, and the man who helped make it a reality sees a future where all bats share the same handle as another humble tool: the axe.
"I think it's only a matter of time before the axe-shaped handle is the standard," said Hugh Tompkins, the director of research and development for Baden Sports, a Seattle-area company that created the Axe Bat, which this year received permission from Major League Baseball for in-game use. "The round-handled bat will be like a rotary telephone."
The Axe Bat replaces the knob with an oval-shaped handle that tapers into a curved, angled bottom. While Jimmy Rollins' furtive and occasional use of an Axe Bat two years ago marked its debut in major league games, Pedroia has spent a month using it as his lone bat, and the results are promising: Over the 28 games since he switched, he is hitting .353/.386/.504. His 42 hits over the past month are tied for the fourth most in baseball. And it's all with a bat that grew out of a simple question: Why does the knob – the one piece of the bat known to hurt players, particularly those who grip it on the lower edge of the palm and put their hamate bones in danger – still exist when it imperils those it's supposed to help?
Today's version looks about the same as it has for decades – maybe a little shorter and lighter, some with cupped barrels, all with the same round knob on the handle, save for a single bat of those used by the 750 major leaguers. It belongs to Boston Red Sox second baseman Dustin Pedroia, and the man who helped make it a reality sees a future where all bats share the same handle as another humble tool: the axe.
"I think it's only a matter of time before the axe-shaped handle is the standard," said Hugh Tompkins, the director of research and development for Baden Sports, a Seattle-area company that created the Axe Bat, which this year received permission from Major League Baseball for in-game use. "The round-handled bat will be like a rotary telephone."
The Axe Bat replaces the knob with an oval-shaped handle that tapers into a curved, angled bottom. While Jimmy Rollins' furtive and occasional use of an Axe Bat two years ago marked its debut in major league games, Pedroia has spent a month using it as his lone bat, and the results are promising: Over the 28 games since he switched, he is hitting .353/.386/.504. His 42 hits over the past month are tied for the fourth most in baseball. And it's all with a bat that grew out of a simple question: Why does the knob – the one piece of the bat known to hurt players, particularly those who grip it on the lower edge of the palm and put their hamate bones in danger – still exist when it imperils those it's supposed to help?
Dustin needs to get a case of those for the rest of the Sox!
7 replies
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