Bat Shaving...Am I naive

[grcsftbll]

Very true. Unfortunately it sounds like there's not much to be done about it.

 

[CoreSoftball20]

I don't think its prevalent in FP but its def out there. In slowpitch its widespread. The dad actually sounds like some toolbag slowpitch guy who isn't good enough to hit a ball being underhanded to the plate that he alters his bats to make himself not look so pathetic. So now he thinks
his daughter needs it to compete.

Pretty pathetic all in all. Basically telling his child that she isn't good enough without cheating. Great thing to teach your children...right?

And no, unless its a hack job, no way to tell its shaved by looking. Unless you have a compression machine to weed most out its tough. Some bats have a change of sound when shaved right away or after many swings, but nothing you can fight really.

 

[MTR]

DD was at tryout this weekend and I had a dad of another player trying out tell me that he has had his daughter's bats that she uses in practices and games rolled and shaved. I'm was shocked that he's telling me this (especially since we just met), so I ask what he means by shaved. He describes fully shaving the bats and rolling them. I ask him "so you are intentionally cheating, you know your daughter can get banned if she gets caught right? What if she injures someone with that bat, do you know you can be held liable?" He then says it's no big deal, umps never check bats and that I am naive if I don't think everyone is doing it. I was thoroughly pissed that someone would willingly put other people's daughters in a potentially dangerous position and that he was proud of cheating at this point, so I dropped the conversation.

I am guessing some of the other parents whose DDs are already on the team heard him and will say something to the coach, didn't really think it was my place to do so. But if we ever face a team she is on in a tournament will definitely let coach for whatever team we are with know to ask for bat inspection. I never did see the bat up close, so maybe he was just boasting and really didn't understand the ramifications of what he was saying, which is a possibility (but doubtful).

I wanted to get opinions on if you all think bat shaving is prevalent, and how much of a difference have you seen in exit speeds with shaved bats. Also, if you learned that players/teams are shaving their bats what would you do, particularly if they were on your own team?

Years ago when all this started, I warned folks that this could be an issue and I was rebuffed by many members of this board, constantly being told that was a slowpitch problem, not fastpitch. Unfortunately, I was not wrong and all the bat altering issues worked its way into the FP game from 10U to the NCAA.

IMO, the only difference was in the SP game, it was all about player ego while in the FP game, it was all about winning and conning the coach/recruiter with artificial stats

 

[WOODY123]

DD#2 played in a NSA Western World Series in Washington this summer - 12U, took a hard line drive off the shin while pitching. She was out for the rest of the game. The tournament director took the girls bat and sent it to the manufacture to be tested, they took my info as well and followed up with us a couple weeks later. The bat wasn't tampered with. I had no idea they did this when an injury occurs.

 

[CatchTheFever]

Tom, I'm curious about what part of the country you're located. I sure hope it's not common in girls fastpitch but I do know it's very common in men's slow pitch. It wouldn't surprise me if a father that uses shaved bats in his mens league actually got his daughters bat shaved as well.

As far as me asking for location, I noticed awhile ago while searching for a specific bat on craigslist that certain cities and states had tons of ads for bat rolling/shaving and others had none. I could definitely see a potential increase in shaved bats being used in tjose markets where its heavily advertised.

 

[coach james]

Rolling doesn't bother me, because the bat isn't being changed from its original specs. It is just broken in quicker and evenly. Shaving the barrel down is a blatant attempt to alter the bats design.
I'd bet that 75% of the bats used in my old men's league where either shaved out, or at a minimum rolled...

 

[cuzmail]

DD was at tryout this weekend and I had a dad of another player trying out tell me that he has had his daughter's bats that she uses in practices and games rolled and shaved.

What a jackarse!

And here I am not letting DD use her favorite LXT because I am worried it will be considered altered. The end cap is a little warped.

 

[CoreSoftball20]

Rolling doesn't bother me, because the bat isn't being changed from its original specs. It is just broken in quicker and evenly. Shaving the barrel down is a blatant attempt to alter the bats design.
I'd bet that 75% of the bats used in my old men's league where either shaved out, or at a minimum rolled...

So, when you put a bat in a roller and hear the snap, crackle, pop...thats natural? So when a bat is compressed to an inch and
a half in diameter, thats natural?
There is a reason you can take a bat that compresses at 300+ brand new, and with one roll job, it can fail compression. Oh thats right, same as taking BP

I will say there is something just as annoying, is the people that cry about altered bats after every
hard hit ball. Gets rediculous. People read an article about it or some parent tells somebody about
altered bats that he read...then comes to the field and claims every bat on the other team is altered...haha.

 

[JAD]

So, when you put a bat in a roller and hear the snap, crackle, pop...thats natural? So when a bat is compressed to an inch and
a half in diameter, thats natural?
There is a reason you can take a bat that compresses at 300+ brand new, and with one roll job, it can fail compression. Oh thats right, same as taking BP

I would LOVE to know the 'before' and 'after' results of a compression test with a recently manufactured composite bat that has been rolled. It is my understanding that they will not get much hotter than they are out of the wrapper. Is there a compression tester that gives quantifiable results? The ones I saw at ASA nationals just had some LED lights and if the red LED light came on the bat failed, but it did not give a measurement of how much it failed by.

 

[CoreSoftball20]

Yupper, many new bats dont work well with rolling

And yes, each association has different types of comp machines. They do have ones with the compression gauge that you
can see the numbers.