Hitting baseballs bad?

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Apr 16, 2013
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83
New to the softball world after many years of baseball. I've never had any real issues with any baseball bats and durability, but they also have a lot more heft to them. My kid hits a good 500 tee and soft toss a week. On the recommendation of the board we went with a slowpitch bat and she's swinging it very well. My question though, is hitting baseballs off tee and front toss bad? I've read some posts saying it's bad, however I've got a hundred baseballs but have only started getting some softballs. The bat I got was an inexpensive '16 leftover, dual stamp, -6. I figure a -6 would be a little more durable with some extra wall thickness over something like a -10. But, what do I know. I figure baseballs are harder than a softball, but if she's not hitting off something fast moving does it make enough of a difference? Very curious if this is bad on the bat though.
 
Oct 11, 2010
8,337
113
Chicago, IL
I ignore pretty much everyone on this board and DD uses her game bat to hit baseballls occasionally. When she was younger she hit them all the time, bat just needed to last 1 season.

Conscious of board seems to be do not use game bat when hitting baseball's.

If it is a cheap bat, why not?

(I never tried this but apparently a good way to get softballs is to approach TD, your DD does not need to be in tournament, and buy their game used balls. Every game starts with 2 new in the wrapper ballls so they can end up with a bunch of balls they do not need.)
 
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Dec 11, 2010
4,713
113
A baseball weighs 5 ounces. A softball weighs 6.25 ounces. I’d like to know how much difference there is in contact area on the bat of a 5” baseball vs. a 12” softball. I have a bucket of optic yellow Rawlings baseballs I bought on Amazon and my kids told me they feel mushy when they hit them. As in soft. We USED to hit baseballs a lot with Xenos, LXT’s and CFwhatevers and had very few problems. I do not believe we ever broke a bat as a result. We even bunted machine baseballs out of a Jugs.

However.... we have got away from hitting baseballs. Bats are more expensive now, there used to be more cheap bats on EBay and I just decided one day that the best way learn to hit softballs well is to hit softballs. Now all we use baseballs for is self toss with wood bats.
 

Strike2

Allergic to BS
Nov 14, 2014
2,044
113
I wouldn't use an expensive composite game bat to hit anything other than softballs tossed or thrown by hand, or off a batting-T.

However, there's nothing wrong with using an older bat. There's good reason to think that if someone can hit a baseball consistently, they can hit a softball even more consistently. While I don't use baseballs often, I do use 11 inch softballs and baseball / golfball sized whiffles for hand-eye drills.
 
Oct 11, 2010
8,337
113
Chicago, IL
I have never used 11" softball once DD was at 12" ball.

Not enough of a difference IMO.

We do the smaller ball stuff though.
 
Apr 16, 2013
1,113
83
The bat only cost me 130 so it's not a high dollar bat. However, that doesn't mean I want it to break. Lol I'm just wondering about the physics behind hitting baseballs. We did try one session hitting them off the machine in the upper 50's and that wasn't pleasant. LOTS of vibration. So we just do tee and soft toss. I would think from the aspect that a baseball is lighter than a softball would mean something "better", but the baseball being a lot harder than the softball would mean something "worse". I literally don't know so I just wondered if anyone had any thoughts on the actual physics of using a softball bat with a baseball and if it was worse than hitting a softball. However, does being a -6 make it more durable since it should have a thicker wall? No one may know the answer but figured I'd ask.
 
Dec 11, 2010
4,713
113
The advantage of 11 inch balls would be a lot more fit into a bucket. OMG be careful of them though, slow pitch bats weren’t designed to hit those. It might break after you hit a few thousand of them and then it will be the balls fault.

BTW we also hit a couple hundred machine balls a week during our baseball hitting days. Xenos, LXT’s and CF5’s 6’s and 7’s. Not exactly ancient technology. But don’t do that either.

People worry too much. Swing it like you stole it, if it breaks wipe the ball marks off with a magic eraser and some Softscrub and send it back, lol!

Or, spend the equivalent of a new bat buying softballs and maybe have to warranty a bat anyway.

For whatever it’s worth, best training aids you can buy are a front toss screen and as many buckets of softballs you can afford.
 
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Apr 5, 2013
2,130
83
Back on the dirt...
I personally think hitting a 12” ball is harder than hitting 11” balls or baseballs. I know the baseball is smaller but its also harder to miss hit.

I also have never hurt a bat hitting baseballs. But we dont do it very often anymore unless we want to show “the boys” that she can hit it as far as they can. LOL
 
Jan 30, 2018
252
0
SE Michigan
My daughter does a lot of tee and side toss work. She already goes through at least 1 CFwhatever a year. I bought her an old Techzilla off ebay for $35 shipped. It is aluminum but sounds like a composite when she hits it right. She loves it and I am glad. The one thing I did worry about is that the Techzilla is endloaded and she likes to swing a balanced CFX in games. She has been using the Techzilla all fall and winter in practice and the different weights haven't seemed to affect her yet She also uses short bats to do drills with. Hitting 400 balls a week with a $300 bat is silly to me, and she agrees. I am not a cheap guy when it comes to equipment but I also like to save a buck when I can. Just my thoughts.
 
Oct 3, 2011
3,478
113
Right Here For Now
Here's the difference between a baseball and a softball. Baseballs are more dense that softballs. The older white slowpitch softballs are also more dense. The dimples you find in batting cages are FAR more dense; especially if they are left outdoors at batting cages year after year to weather and harden. Today's composite bats are made of much thinner materials than olden days. Any ball that they hit that isn't a softball will cause the bat materials to flex more than normal and more than they were engineered/designed for. Thus, although not immediately noticeable, it will shorten the lifespan of the bat over a comparable model bat that hit only softballs over the same period of time.

While true that some bat models in the higher swing weights of the same model have thicker walls, it's not necessarily true of ALL manufacturers and their models.

That said, a cheaper practice bat that you don't mind breaking? Go for it.
 

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