State Senate Committee Considers Metal Bat Ban

The state Senate Education Committee will hear a bill Wednesday that would place a three-year moratorium on the use of metal bats in high school baseball games, Assemblyman Jared Huffman said Tuesday.

The bill is in response to the injury of Marin Catholic High School player Gunnar Sandberg who was hit in the head on March 11 with a baseball hit with a metal bat.

Sandberg, 16, was put in a medically-induced coma at Marin General Hospital and a portion of his skull was removed as his brain swelled. He was transferred to a rehabilitation facility in San Francisco and was expected to be released Tuesday but will still under go further therapy on an out-patient basis, his family said.

The incident revived the debate about using metal bats which critics claim make the ball travel faster than those hit with wood bats. The issue has been studied since the 1970s and high school teams in the Marin County Athletic League agreed not to use non-wood bats for the  remainder of this season.

Huffman, D-San Rafael, called the incident a wake-up call.

"It's time to seriously consider the safety of allowing kids to use performance-enhancing metal bats with the pitcher standing 60 feet away with virtually no protection." Huffman said in a press release. "If using metal bats creates an additional risk of injury or death, as the evidence strongly suggests, then we shouldn't hesitate to err on the side of safety and require our high school athletes to use traditional wood bats - the same bats used by Major League players so many of them admire  and aspire to be."

Huffman said his Assembly Bill 7 does not dictate the outcome of the debate but "provides an appropriate precautionary measure - and a  leveling of the playing field, for leagues and teams who choose to protect  pitchers by suspending the use of performance-enhancing bats while baseball  officials sort out the options over the next few years," Huffman said.

The moratorium also would provide time to update safety equipment standards, Huffman said.

Bay City News

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