You had to know there would be a response to my previous posting concerning bats …

I am going to try my hardest to keep this email as civil as possible, and believe me it is taking a massive amount of self control to do so!

I am assuming that the notice on the website is possibly directed to one of our bats. And yes, unbeknown to us I guess this bat is now illegal. It was bought as a team bat about 3 years ago and has been considered a piece of s**t and barely used since we purchased it.

Or is it another b.s. case like our PST getting accused of being illegal, us not using it for 2 months – only to find out it was not illegal and the complainers really had a problem with my F2, which was also legal?

Here is a list of all our bats. Please go ahead a post it on the website so everyone can make sure all our bats are legal because, by God we would definitely be the top team in the entire league that people would be concerned about.

Yea, I’m sure there is constant talk after the games while sipping on a beer: “Man, did you see those guys CRUSH the ball – they are amazing – they should be playing in A division!!”

Freaking ridiculous!!!!!!!

There follows a list of team bats, and the message goes on …

Now you want to talk about illegal bats.

The real problem is every freaking idiot that is out there playing with a loaded bat. You all know who you are - hypocrites!! The 120 lb. guys that are parking the ball, or the big boys that are barely swinging and driving them over the fence.

Our team hasn’t hit a friggin’ home run in at least the last 3 years! We are the ones that feel cheated.

My response

I explained that the issue with that specific bat was raised in such a way as to ensure that they didn’t get called on it by another team at an inopportune time (it’s an automatic out and player ejection if called during a game). It was sent to me to deal with discretely … and I put it up there for the world to see!!

The reason I posted it had absolutely nothing to do with that team specifically – it was more to do with the middle of the rant when the “real” problem was pointed out!

There is talk around every year of bats that should not be in play – “juiced”, “gassed”, whatever you call bats that are smokin’ hot and a danger to the players. The problem isn’t going to go away any time soon as there are always players out there who need an extra edge to feel like a winner. And it’s not confined to the top divisions where the competition is fiercest (though talk is always more prevalent there).

The best approach I could think of was to post that message and hope that it would generate some discussion … and make players think twice about bringing out that “go-to” bat. Hopefully the umpires will take a closer look at what’s on the fence, and hopefully the players will be encouraged to question whether it’s worth swinging that questionable bat in the first place.