Yes, the bats have been deadened. Are the bats not as lively as they were back in the 1990s? Haven't they been purposely deadened?
Re: Yes, the bats have been deadened. yeah they changed the dimensions on the bats, mostly because of LSU.
Re: Re: Yes, the bats have been deadened. I tried doing a seach for LSU baseball stats for 1997 but I couldn't find any thing. I do know that in 1997 LSU hit something like 188 home runs in the 69 or 70 games they played with at least 1 dinger in every game. Brandon Larson hit 40, which is like Barry Bonds or Sammy Sosa hitting 100 in 162 games. Amazingly Larson wasn't even the NCAA home run leader that year. Lance Berkman of Rice and now with the Houston Astros hit 41 that year. LSU had a bunch of guys with 15 or 20 or more that same year. This year Clay Harris was the team leader with 16, Zerangue had 15, Hill and Gill had 13 each. I'm not sure which year but I think it was after the 1997 or 1998 season when the NCAA changed the rules on the allowable dimensions of the bat. If they allowed major leaguers to use aluminum bats pitchers would have to dress like hockey goalies to keep from getting killed. I personally would like to see the NCAA go back to wood bats. The original reason they switch to aluminum was the cost because so many wood bats get broken during a season but now that college baseball is a bigtime money sport they can afford all the wood bats they would need. If a pitcher dares to throw in inside fastball or curve the hitter just muscles it for a single. With wooden bats the bat would break while the ball went to the infield for a ground out. It would give a little of the edge back to the pitcher.
To reduce the number of double plays (you cannot AVOID them), we need to be more active on the bases. I know this goes against everything about LSU baseball, but we need to work in some hit and runs, bunts, and steals. Even if we're not overly successful stealing, at least we keep the opposing team on their toes. Look at what Cal St. did to us this year. If we can do that (with Sprowl, Holt, Nacarrata, why not?) and mix in the power (Zeringue, Patterson, Hill) then we would be pretty damn tough.
Re: Re: Re: Yes, the bats have been deadened. ya, I think they changed it after the 1998 season, didnt we set a home run record in the CWS that year?
yeah, we set the record for homers in just 3 games with 16 homers, and set the record for homers in a single game with 8 against USC! if I remember right it really just took us 2 and 2/9th's game to break the record.
