New Torpedo Bat Sinks MLB HR Record

MIT physicist turned baseball hitting coach invented the “torpedo bat” that helped Yankees blow up a MLB record by clobbering 15 HRs in their first 3 games. Now, WSJ says, major leaguers everywhere want one.

The new style bat, created by 48-year-old Aaron Leanhardt when he had become a minor-league hitting coordinator for the Yankees, meets MLB’s unbending bat requirements set forth in Rule 3.02. That is, any bat must be a smooth round wood stick, no longer than 42 inches in length & no more than 2.6 inches thick at the thickest part. What sets Leanhardt’s TB apart, the WSJ coverage explains, is that its “fat part [is] closer to the handle rather than the end” so that it looks more like a “bowling pin” than the traditional club. We’re told the idea behind the TB was to “help batters make more contact at a time when strikeouts are at an all-time high” and without “sacrificing bat speed.”

Dunno. If that was the idea behind the new bat, shouldn’t batting averages be going up, not necessarily homeruns? The verdict on the latter is yet to be documented and will certainly be closely watched in the coming season. But, that rash of homers while using the TB has already convinced MLB observers than the game may never be the same.

Davd Soul