“Once upon a time, bats were all made of wood, and opportunities to get an edge limited. Softball bat barrels are thinner than hardball bats, 2 1/4” in diameter, 1/2” less than hardball bats of the era (once 2 ¾”, now 2 5/8”), and there just wasn’t much that could be done with them.
Then, in 1969, revolution. The bat manufacturer Easton released the first true aluminum bat, opening the floodgates for other companies to put their own versions on the market. The ball clearly rebounded off aluminum more quickly, and traveled farther; a subsequent examination into why pointed to the bat’s hollow construction, which caused the bat to compress, then spring back, “trampolining” the batted ball upon contact. Shortly thereafter, sports equipment Darwinism relegated wooden bats to the chipper.
With these new instruments, came new methods of subterfuge. “We’d put all kinds of crap inside of them,” said Sparky, anything to give them some kind of extra juice, to make the trampoline effect more pronounced: Tennis balls, rubber balls, various weights on the handle or towards the top of the bat. But it wasn’t until the introduction of titanium bats that the softball world took a dangerous turn.”
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