Not sure. I’ve seen no actual studies on the issue. The subjective opinions of individual players aren’t a very reliable source of information, because of course they’ll rationalize their decision to go with either maple or ash.
By a fortunate twist, however, my father in law is a woodworker who specializes in sporting equipment and working in all types of wood. Bats are not his thing, but I’ve asked him about this, and he says he’s skeptical that there’d be a difference except in someone’s head.
-lists the characteristics of white ash as; hard, very strong, tough, elastic…
for sugar maple (seems the most likely); heavy, hard, strong,…,tough.
if it ML’ers use silver maple; hard…brittle.
No numbers, but it seems the adjectives are used in a scientific manner, so it follows that traditional ash is somewhat ‘stronger’ than either sort of maple-also more elastic, which would mean it could withstand greater deflection before breaking.
IIRC, when maple bats were first coming into widespread usage, ESPN ran a piece that claimed they were harder than traditional ash, thereby losing less energy to distortion and transferring more to the ball.
Since inter-league is not year-round, the comparisons of team records from different leagues is meaningless.
This is exactly why the All-Star Game “counting” makes sense. You’re commingling the talent in both leagues and at least trying to see which league is better, and deserving of the home-field advantage.
One thing I don’t understand is why a 3-hour baseball game is alleged to be too long, but about every professional football game lasts 3 hours and that is supposedly o.k.? People complain about there being a comparative lack of “action” during baseball games, but in most football games there’s a few seconds of running about followed by a half a minute or so of wandering about the field, waiting for the ball to be repositioned, huddling, lining up, etc., before another couple seconds of running about. In baseball, between one pitch and another, there is a lot of suspense, because any of several things might happen. Will the guy on base try to steal? Where is the defense set up? What pitch will be thrown? How is the pitcher setting up? What signs are being given? It’s a head game rather than just physical. In addition to the physical aspects of the game, both the batter and the pitcher (in tandem with the catcher) are often playing cat-and-mouse games with each other, trying to psych each other out.
IMHO a lot of the complainers don’t understand the subtleties of the game. Some years back, I treated my father, who believed himself to be knowledgable about the game, to tickets for a minor league game in our area. One of the batters was hitting off a lot of foul balls. Dad complained about that “waste of time.” I had to explain to him that this was a good thing the batter was doing: He was not striking out, he was keeping the at-bat alive until he got a pitch he could do something with, he was tiring out the pitcher, and both the current batter and all his teammates were getting more and more looks at the pitcher’s delivery. Oh.
A football game being 3 hours long is not OK by me. They lull me to sleep sometimes, and I’ve always been a big football fan. All commercially viable American sports are watered down with commercials and other TV crap, and it bugs me.
Interestingly, by contrast, European football (aka soccer), which is pretty much constant action with very few (and short) breaks, has had a hard time breaking through in the U.S. because its format makes it a bad fit for TV, which means the sport has struggled to get wide exposure. Sports with frequent breaks work well on TV, and get popular, and get bogged down by compromises necessary for the medium, victims of their own success; sports without breaks can’t get on TV and don’t get popular. Crazymaking, no?
I’m fairly convinced that’s the reason hockey can’t get a good TV contract. There are no natural commercial breaks except between periods.
[quote=MLS]
One thing I don’t understand is why a 3-hour baseball game is alleged to be too long, but about every professional football game lasts 3 hours and that is supposedly o.k.?**
A three-hour-plus football game is not all right with me. Football, just as baseball, is better when it’s played crisper and cleaner. Your point about studying the field is good, but it doesn’t take that long to scan. It’s really not necessary to have enough time to critique the positioning of every fielder when a right-handed batter is up against a left-handed pitcher with the count 2-1 and runners on second and third with the wind blowing 7 miles an hour to left-center in Ebbets Field. Unless you’re Earl Weaver.
My thoughts exactly. It certainly is maddening. Then again, I’m a soccer fan.
The thing, though, is that you can still advertise in soccer. I’ve seen games where each section of 5 or 10 minutes is “brought to you by” one advertiser or another, and the logo of that company is sitting right up next to the score thing in the upper corner.