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In my ongoing effort to become rich and famous, here’s a fiery take on the bat: It’s just another step along the way. Given the restrictions in place -- and occasionally going outside of them -- batters have been trying to get the best performance out of bats since the game was called rounders. Bats used to be enormous pieces of wood, without much taper towards the handle. Players experimented with flat-sided bats for bunting, ones eventually banned. The weight of bats has steadily dwindled, as players trade off mass for bat speed.
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This isn’t a problem. I’m open to the idea that it could become one, though I doubt anything that helps hitters right now is something we should be attacking. It’s a welcome shift, honestly, to be talking about a way in which hitters might possibly even the field against pitches, these sweepers and deathballs and kick-changes, optimized to within an inch of their lives. Let the hitters fight back a bit.
