The High Cost of HItting

             Hitters are crazy when it comes to that one tool of their trade.  Ted Williams was forever shaving and weighing his bats while Ichiro uses a kind of humidor to keep bats from absorbing moisture.  That extra fraction of an ounce apparently would throw his whole swing off.

            There’s not much you can do with the composite bat used in college.  Basically, it’s a matter of love it or toss it.  With luck, a bat will last for around two seasons.  Then it’s shopping time, with a softball bat going for as much as $350.  In comparison, an expensive Louisville Slugger costs $129, or thereabouts.

            Clare’s first bat was plastic, very affordable.  But once she moved on from Wiffle Ball, we needed something a bit firmer.  We got away with an old wooden bat in T-Ball, then used the same aluminum bat for two years of Pony Baseball.  Sticker shock didn’t set in until high school.  And to think $200 seemed like a lot of money.

            If memory serves, at one time or another I used different Louisville Sluggers trying to be Pete Rose, Carl Yastrzemski and Jackie Robinson; the bottlenose bat was like the one Nellie Fox used.  Alas, whatever the bat, the swing stayed pretty much the same, but at least I didn’t go broke from summer to summer.  Times have changed more than a little.

            Clare used the same bat her first two years of college, good for thirteen homeruns; too bad about the crack that developed.  So, junior year meant a new bat, we won’t mention the maker.  Just $300 put down in the hope of yet more long balls to come.  Two was not enough.  Two made my daughter think there was something wrong with her.  Two led her to talk to a teammate who used the same bat with the same disappointing results.  Two drove her to eBay, where she found a “slightly” used version of her old bat for “just” $240.

Free shipping, though, and Clare’s picking up the first $150.  Fingers crossed until she can try it out.