Many sports around the world today are known by the particular equipment that players may use. In hockey, for example, players use hockey sticks to strike a puck while using ice skates. In tennis, players are going to use a net and racquets on a court. And as for baseball, a player may use a bat or a leather catcher’s mitt, these being iconic sports equipment recognized around the world. Any baseball or softball player, whether a pro athlete or a casual player, will want to buy some fine wooden bats and metal bats to play the game. Such bats can be found at sports goods stores, and some customers may want to doctor those bats for enhanced performance. Shaved bats, for example, can strike a ball farther than regular ones, and rolled bats may do something similar. Shaved bats and rolled bats can also be bought as-is, if desired. What is there to know about rolled and shaved bats? Can these doctored bats bring in results during a game?
About Shaved Bats
While ash wood is the traditional material for making baseball bats, many baseball bat models today are made of metal instead, and they are hollow on the inside. Such bats are fine as they are, but they can be doctored, or shaved, for enhanced performance if so desired. A player may buy shaved bats online, or purchase a regular metal bat and take it to a bat shaving service to have it altered correctly.
To shave a bat, the metal bat’s end cap is removed to expose the hollow interior, and the bat is then placed on a lathe table’s assembly and slowly fed to a rotating grinder surface. That grinder goes into the bat and shaves off a few ounces of its padding material, and then the bat is removed and its end cap is replaced. As a result, the bat is somewhat more flexible, and it can strike balls further than if it were not shaved.
Such bats are not allowed in sanction games, however, so they are best used in casual games of baseball and softball instead. What is more, care should be taken when shaving bats, since removing too much padding on the inside will make the bat too fragile, and it might shatter when used in a game. The same is true if any material is shaved from the handle, so the handle must be avoided when shaving. Finally, take note that shaved bats do not perform well in weather colder than 65 degrees Fahrenheit. But if shaved bats are used in warm weather and casual games, they can make for a fine instrument, and strike balls very far since they have bolstered flexibility.
Rolling Wooden Bats
It is popular nowadays to use metal bats, but wooden baseball bats still sell well, and are widely beloved. A wooden bat is made up of natural wood fibers, and a fresh bat’s fibers will be bent and broken as the bat is used during gameplay. This is desirable, since a bat that’s been used enough has become broken in, and it is more flexible. This allows a fully broken-in bat to strike balls farther than a fresh new bat. A player may practice with a bat to break it in, but they can also purchased rolled bats online or take their wooden bat to a rolling service.
At a bat rolling service, the wooden baseball bat is passed through some pressurized rollers, and this will distress the bat enough to bend and break its fibers. Care must be taken so that the bat is not simply damaged and splintered instead. If done correctly, rolling results in a bat that closely mimics a fully broken-in bat, and performs the same way. However, rolled bats are recognizable by sight, and they are not allowed in sanctioned baseball games at all. But they are a fine choice for using in casual games, where league rules may not be enforced.
A rolled bat can also be useful during practice, since a player may not want to risk breaking their prized wooden bats during practice sessions. Instead, this player may use rolled wooden bats as substitutes whose performance is similar to that of their game-worthy, broken-in wooden bats.
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