SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS) -- A New Jersey inventor believes he's come up with a way to make baseball safer for everyone from Little Leaguers to the pros by developing what he calls an “unbreakable bat.”
In baseball, there is the traditional baseball bat made from a single piece of wood, and in youth baseball, there is the aluminum bat which has been plagued by controversy for the last few years over whether or not it is safe enough for children to use.
But Ward Dill, an M.I.T. graduate, says that unlike all the other traditional bats used over the last several decades, he says that his radial bat will never break.
“No matter how you orientate a radial bat you have the best hitting surface all the way around and you can orientate it anyway and it’s equally strong.”
Broken baseball bats are a serious issue. This past July, 257 of them broke during the course of 260 games. There were also 3 significant injuries this year involving broken bats at Major League games.
“When a maple bat shatters, the shards of wood have razor sharp edges and they’re traveling at very high speeds because of the very high speed and bat speed that these professional athletes use.”
Dill will be submitting his Radial Bat to Major League Baseball which will have to test it and approve it before it could be used in big league games.
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KCBS' Susan Leigh Taylor reports
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