Maple Wood Baseball Bats
Maple became popular beginning in the late 80’s and early 90’s. Hard maples that work well for baseball bats include sugar maple (Acer saccharum) and rock maple. Maple is harder than other woods use in the manufacture of baseball bats. The hardness of this wood causes a baseball to jump off the bat. In the 1990’s several home run records were broken, and at the time it was thought that was due to the properties of this baseball bats made from maple. That is in question with the investigations and admittance of steroid use.
The properties of maple that make it such a great wood for baseball bat are also a detriment to it as well. Because it is so hard when it breaks it shatters. Every time a ball makes contact with a maple baseball bat there is a minute stress fracture created. This means that maple bats have a limited number of hits in their life time before breaking even if every contact is on the sweet spot.
The” sweet spot” is located on the barrel of the bat on the correct side. “Bad hits” are considered to be in the handle areas or on the end of the bat and are considered “cue sticking”. Cue sticking is actually the number one reason for baseball bat failure. With a maple bat, a break or failure of the bat is not always caused by a bad hit. Often there have been too many good hits on the bat!
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