Maple baseball bats are getting more and more popular
Recent technology in drying wood has created bats with lower moisture content, which are light enough to make effective baseball bats. Rock or Sugar Maple bats are preferred. Maple baseball bats cost a bit more than white ash, but they tend to outlast ash bats many times over as a result of their high strength. In the long run, because they last longer, they're less expensive. 2001 - Barry Bonds and Maple Bats The 2001 baseball season brought about a feat that just five years ago most would have thought not only impossible, but completely ridiculous - Barry Bonds hit a record 73 home runs in a single season! Soon into his home run tear it was learned that Bonds was using maple baseball bats, rather than the standard bats made of white ash. So why don't all major Leaguers use maple? Actually, as they are becoming more well known, more players are now using them. Just like in your own dugout, players will try out each other's new bats. Since they have such good "feel", some players will switch while other players having the superstitions that many ballplayers tend to have, will never change even the color much less the type of bat that they use. Also, since Major leaguers aren't concerned with saving money on bat breakage, economy is not the issue that it is for the rest of us. Here's a warning when considering a maple bat: Because of it's recent good press, too many new companies have jumped on the bandwagon making bats out of inferior material such as red or silver maple. It's a soft maple that just won't hold up well enough in my opinion especially keeping in mind that they cost more than ash bats to begin with. So, don't buy unless you are sure you are getting a hard maple bat! (remember the names rock maple and sugar maple. It's a great "stick", with some players saying that the ball just jumps off the bat a bit quicker. It doesn't flake (outer layers or pieces that chip off in flakes) like ash either. For years bat makers were unable to make baseball bats from maple due to the high moisture content of the wood. Despite the high strength it was simply too heavy to make into a baseball bat. In the late 90's technology came to the rescue and high tech wood kilns now remove enough moisture from the wood to make high quality, high strength maple baseball bats. Today, maple bats are increasingly favored by amateur and major league players alike. They can be expensive, though many feel that their increased strength makes one maple bat a wiser purchase than several ash bats. Good-quality maple baseball bats look, feel and perform better, longer. MAPLE VS ASH The great debate over which wood is best. This will be for you to decide. Here are the facts as we see them. The choice is ultimately yours. Maple is a very hard, dense wood. The surface hardness is about 20% greater than ash. The harder the surface the faster the ball will jump off the bat. This is one of the reasons you have seen maple become very popular. That and Barry Bonds swings maple. Maple is also a closer grained hard wood. With maple you don't see the grain like you do with ash. With maple the grain straightness doesn't matter like it does with ash. Maple will not splinter like ash. The grain will not separate like ash will. Maple being harder doesn't have much flex to it. Ash on the other hand does flex. When a ball is hit with ash there is a trampoline affect. The ball doesn't just jump off, it first compresses the wood, then like a spring board it leaves with more force than maple. This spring board affect is one of ash's greatest strengths and weeknesses. This spring board and compression will in time cause the grains to separate. Because of this flex the ash will appear to have a larger sweet spot. Ash bats also do not snap the way a maple bat does. They will break just as easy, but usually wear out. The grain will delaminate over many uses. Click here to go back from Maple Baseball Bats to the Bats Material page
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