Choosing a bat

This is a question that comes up now and then. Parents will come to me and ask what size bat they should get their daughter.

What I've found to be the best way of choosing a bat is to have the hitter stand up straight. Then place her bat choices next to her leg, with the barrel down and the knob up. The knob should come up to the hitter's wrist. That is the ideal bat length. It can go a little above there if she's willing to choke up, but not too much.

From there it's a matter of the bat drop -- the difference between the length and weight. For most hitters a -10 will be the best choice, although at 10U if the hitter is small you might want to go with a -11 or even -12. (If you're not familiar with it, a -10 means a 30 inch bat will weight 20 ounces.) If the hitter is bigger or stronger, you might want to go with a -9 or -8, although the latter might mean you have to go with a slowpitch bat.

For some reason a lot of girls seem to like to go with bats that are too long for them. A bat that's too long can be dfficult for the hitter to swing, and the faster the pitching the more obvious it becomes. On the other hand, a bat that's too short won't provide the power and will force the hitter to stand closer to the plate than she needs to.

When selecting a bat, use the "wrist test." It works.

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one thing i've noticed too is that if one of the largest or strongest girls on the team hits a homerun with her 34"/25oz bat then every girl on the team starts swinging it. you'll look up and there'll be some 16 y/o 5' nuthin' girl dragging some big log up to the plate that the catcher will have the ball heading back to the pitcher before they finish swinging it.

my dd swings a 32"/23oz combat (she's 5'11" btw) and everyone says it's too short but yet she pretty much hit everything she swung at this summer. her ability to control this bat was obvious over some of the other girls that swung the 33" or 34" bats when facing some of the flame throwers we went up against this summer. she also has a 33"/23oz mayhem and she never took it the plate all summer.