I know, it can happen
One day, you have a nice bat, does nice things, hangs out in all the right bat racks, never gets involved with the bad crowd.
Then, the next day, you find it, down there on the ground with those other bats, getting into bad habits, hanging out with the wrong crowd, and doing all the bad things that bats should not do.
And this isnt no ordinary bat I am talking about, this is "the" bat.
Ahh yes, you see now..
you dont see?
you know, "the" bat
No?
OK, let me set the scene for you......
It was the birthday weekend.
The team was playing at Rangers Youth Ballpark
M had cupcake smeared all over his face by his coach
and....
yes, THAT bat.
the Infamous "Its my first Home Run in kid pitch baseball" bat.
ok, now that we have that all out of the way, back to the problem.
Our beloved bat, turned bad.
(GASP)
I know, its shocking. One minute, there it is, on top of the world, hitting balls over the fence
The next minute, there it was, not able to move a ball out of the infield.
Its always the same thing, you blame yourself, you wonder, what have I done to change. Why arent my balls still flying like they use to?
you never realize, its not you, its them!
So we finally decided we should do some scientific testing, we needed a test jig.
We took (2) 38 1/4" pieces of 6061 right angle aluminum and cut one end of each piece at 38.25 degrees. Tig welded those 2 pieces together. Took an 800lb spring and tied the long ends of the pieces together. Some cold rolled steel served as our Y plate which was bolted in place using only grade 8 bolts (of course)
Once we were able to get the exact geometry all worked out, we were able to take a 1/16" slice into a MLB professional baseball and epoxy it to the frame in exactly the spot where the bat would strike the frame. using High Speed cameras borrowed from our friends at NASA we were able to determine the exact bound back created by the ball at the normal bat speed. Our findings were very hard to believe.
actually what is hard to believe is that you believe what I just wrote. If you do buy that story, I need to talk to you about the plight of the Naugas, These poor little creatures are being slaughtered every day just so people can buy cheap furniture, please give and give a lot to the plight of the Naugas and save one of these wretched little creatures from a life of terror.
so anyway, what we actually did do, is E and M went to the park with the "new" bat (otherwise known as the IMFHRIKPB bat) and the old bat (you know, the bat that was perfectly fine and had no issues at all but we could not use it anymore because USSSA decided that everyone playing little league baseball had to make a donation to their local bat supplier to get a new bad with this handy dandy sticker on it which in turn would make the world a better place to live)
Yes, that bat.
and what did they do? M hit. M hit with the old bat, then the new bat, then the old bat, then the new bat, then the old bat, then the new bat, well, I think you get the idea. The point is, they hit, they hit a lot, and they hit with both bats.
What did they find?
The old bat produced solid hits, line drives. deep hits to the outfield.
The new bat produced wimpy little drives with no power behind them.
They were also able to determine the sound of the old bat was a good "POP" where the sound of the new bat was a "thump" (this took many hours of testing using a 5GHZ laser radio mic tied to a spectrum analyzer with real time display. They were able to break down each frequency and how its response changed from ball to ball and bat to bat.)
( no, not really, They just used our ears.... did I mention the plight of the Naugas, I really think you should donate....)
They strolled in the door and M says "Mom, we need a new bat"
Ok fine, well lets see, what kind of bat should we get...
Hmm, this one, the beloved IMFHRIKPB bat, is a DeMarini Vexxum
The one before it, was a DeMarini Vexxum
The one before it, was a Demarini Vendetta
I think we will get a DeMarini Vexxum
(umm, by the way, if anyone from lets say, DeMarini is out there, I have a good looking, 5'7" 170lb 11 year old baseball player who would be glad to go around and tell everyone how wonderful his DeMarini Vexxum bat is and how he loves DeMarini bats, because he does. Just putting that out there, just in case anyone might be interested in trading a lifetime supply of bats for a little goodwill)
and off we go to the wonderful interweb and order us a new bat. The bat was supposed to arrive Thursday.
It didnt,
it arrived Wednesday instead. (gotcha there didnt I)
so Wednesday night if you thought you heard Angels singing and were thinking it was the Church down the street being loud, it wasnt. It was Angels singing as M opened up his box, and removed his new bat. Angels sang, Manna fell from Heaven, All was great with the world again...
He did not take the wrapping off it for 24 hours. Just sat there and stared at it.
Honestly, he was drooling, and it was gross..
Thursday evening he hit with it. He loves it, of course. This is now his new bat, the new bat is now his old bat (also known as the IMFHRIKPB bat) and the old bat is now just an old bat. (because we cant leave everyone else the same and call this one the new new bat, thats just stupid)
Guess we will have to see how practice goes with the "new" bat. M is very excited.
for those of you who are concerned of what we will do with the IMFHRIKPB bat, dont worry, we will not put it out with the trash or dis respect it in any way. It will go on the wall of fame in M's room just like it should.
For those who have had a hard time keeping up, the moral of the story is....
Baseball makes the world go round..
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