9 ms·

Baseball Bat With an Axe Handle Brings More Power, Fewer Injuries

84 points by x43b 12y ago

projectileboy 12y ago
The product is available at http://www.axebat.com http://www.axebat.com, for anyone curious. The price for a maple bat ($99) is comparable to any decent maple bat from other manufacturers.
- have_faith 12y ago
  >patented axe handle If like others have alluded to, that this is far from new. Should they have a patent on it?
  - rurounijones 12y ago
    The handle design is not new but applying the design to a baseball bat does appear to be a new idea and I would say it appears to be novel as no one else in the baseball bat industry has come up with it (To the point of patenting) in the past hundred or so years.
    - esquivalience 12y ago
      just posted a bit about this upstairs ^
colmmacc 12y ago
The handle is very similar to an Irish Hurley; http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d4/Hurling_Ball_and_Hurley.JPG http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d4/Hurling_B... , which has been around a few hundred years. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajeagHCk15g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajeagHCk15g for a taste of the game itself).
- esquivalience 12y ago
  If it is very similar, it shouldn't be patented as it's public domain technology. You should definitely submit this to the USPTO as a prior art they may not have considered. They are able to re-open examination for this sort of thing.
  - easytiger 12y ago
    Err, also, a err, axe?
    - esquivalience 12y ago
      Haha - yes, but it's probably safe to assume they knew about that already when the patent was granted and they overcame it. Perhaps because it's solving a long-standing problem or because the axe is a very different application of force, or something. The above is basically a sports bat so might be close enough to warrant a different perspective.
- cafard 12y ago
  I think that I heard of such a design for bats thirty years ago, though at this point I'm not sure but it was for hammer handles. I do think that somebody had applied it to bats.
TheBiv 12y ago
I love the bit about the bat being 3D printed and then tested out by actual baseball players!!
- zachrose 12y ago
  Yeah that was interesting. I'm sort of curious what they were printed out of (plastic?) and how that's cheaper or better than just machining wood, or even machining a blank and rounding out the handle with and hand tools.
  - dagw 12y ago
    I'm guessing it's a question of iteration time rather than price. Printing out 20 bats where each bat has one parameter tweaked slightly, and then iterating based on feedback is probably a lot quicker and easier using 3D printers rather than wood blanks and hand tools.
    - dublinben 12y ago
      It would almost certainly be quicker to crank out a wooden prototype from a CNC lathe than to print one in plastic. A bat made out of ABS plastic isn't really going to work anyway, so it's not much of a prototype.
BrechtVds 12y ago
> Its latest composite bat, the Avenge L140B, has special construction that allows the hitting side to flex like a spring. I'm not familiar with baseball (Belgian here) and was wondering how these things are regulated? Does each player have its own bat? So one team can already be at a technological disadvantage when the game starts?
- bwhite 12y ago
  The spec for baseball is available. [0] Regarding the bat itself, the regulations say it must be "round" (1.10), which probably rules out this particular handle. Other than round, the maximum weight, length, and diameter are specified. While bats close to these maximums were once widely used, almost all modern bats are well shy of those figures. Presumably the lighter, smaller bats of today more than make up in control and speed what they lack in mass. [0] http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/downloads/y2010/official_rules/2010_OfficialBaseballRules.pdf http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/downloads/y2010/official_rules/2010_O...
  - stoolpigeon 12y ago
    The big market for these wont be with MLB players. It's going to be amateur softball and baseball leagues. They have rules about bats but they are much more generous and not as rigorously enforced. Though what you say about the bat being round must not apply to the handle as the article says these bats are already in use by at least one MLB player. I saw them for the first time this summer. We were in the US for a bit and I had the chance to get my son some batting instruction. (We live in Hungary and he plays little league here but it's harder to find coaches and such.) We did it with a friend and his son uses these bats. They are expensive. The wooden Axe bat he was using is around $100. And those only last so long. But anyway - when you have people dropping $300 - $500 on softball bats it's not hard to see how a company can do well selling to recreational players.
    - bwhite 12y ago
      Sure enough, it's been MLB-approved! One thing in particular that might be useful for non-pros is that the handle is CNC-cut to orient the grain in the correct way.
jasonkester 12y ago
The Suit is Back! http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html I wonder if we should start putting [Advertisement] tags onto submissions like this, in the same way we do for Videos, PDfs, YC submissions, and old blog posts.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
thaumasiotes 12y ago
I've got a novel idea -- what if we made baseball bats out of aluminum instead of wood? If we're going to say technological improvements to the bats are out of bounds, why are improvements to the handle part of the bats OK?
- lmm 12y ago
  Because them's the rules? Most sporting rules are arbitrary, but you need rules to have a sport.
- cwyers 12y ago
  Every bat has a "sweet spot," the part where the least vibration through the bat is produced on contact -- hitting the ball off the sweet spot means less "stinging," which you may have experienced if you've ever been to a batting cage and taken a bad swing at a ball. It's also the part of the bat where you get the biggest exit speed off the bat, and faster balls tend to be fielded less, so more exit speed means a better hit ball. Aluminum bats have a significantly larger sweet spot than wooden bats, and they also have a higher coefficient of restitution -- that's the measure of "springiness" that a bat has, which is another factor in ball exit speeds. (Although aluminum bat manufacturers have been "deadening" their aluminum bats for college use because of safety concerns.) Altogether, aluminum bats are substantially different from wood bats, and what you get is a game with a lot less skill involved and a lot more well-hit balls. This Axe Bat, meanwhile, is a pretty modest tweak that is allowed under the current rules for what players can use.
- bkmartin 12y ago
  Who said technological improvements to bats are out of bounds? Baseball bats have been going through all kinds of improvements for decades, especially in the aluminum market. Amatuer sports leagues typically force a certain length to weight ratio. You'll see bats marked at -7, or -5. Meaning the bat might be 30 inches long but weighs 23 or 25 ounces respectively. Keeping these ratios is about safety and fairness per certain age groups. You don't want some giant 12 year old swinging a -3 33 inch bat on a field the size they play on. That would be just dangerous. So between all the changes in what the bats are made from internally, to how thick the walls are, to how the handle is attached to the barrel, to the shape and type of the end cap, to the weight distribution... its all been improved on over the years. So I have no idea why someone would say technological improvements to bats are out of bounds.
showkhill 12y ago
'tis a round hurley
rmc 12y ago
Reminds me of a hurley, the bat used to play the Irish game of hurling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurling#mediaviewer/File:Hurling_Ball_and_Hurley.JPG https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurling#mediaviewer/File:Hurli... . Notice the metal band to keep the end from breaking. The ball is about as hard as a baseball. It can be caught in the hand, without a glove. Within the last few years they've had to wear (light) helmets. Hurling follows the Dodgeball approach of "If you can dodge a wrench...".
tlrobinson 12y ago
It's interesting the inverse would also be true: "Baseball Bat With an Axe Head Brings Less Power, More Injuries"

84 points by x43b 12y ago

The product is available at http://www.axebat.com http://www.axebat.com, for anyone curious. The price for a maple bat ($99) is comparable to any decent maple bat from other manufacturers.

have_faith 12y ago
>patented axe handle If like others have alluded to, that this is far from new. Should they have a patent on it?
- rurounijones 12y ago
  The handle design is not new but applying the design to a baseball bat does appear to be a new idea and I would say it appears to be novel as no one else in the baseball bat industry has come up with it (To the point of patenting) in the past hundred or so years.
  - esquivalience 12y ago
    just posted a bit about this upstairs ^

colmmacc 12y ago

The handle is very similar to an Irish Hurley; http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d4/Hurling_Ball_and_Hurley.JPG http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d4/Hurling_B... , which has been around a few hundred years. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajeagHCk15g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajeagHCk15g for a taste of the game itself).

esquivalience 12y ago
If it is very similar, it shouldn't be patented as it's public domain technology. You should definitely submit this to the USPTO as a prior art they may not have considered. They are able to re-open examination for this sort of thing.
- easytiger 12y ago
  Err, also, a err, axe?
  - esquivalience 12y ago
    Haha - yes, but it's probably safe to assume they knew about that already when the patent was granted and they overcame it. Perhaps because it's solving a long-standing problem or because the axe is a very different application of force, or something. The above is basically a sports bat so might be close enough to warrant a different perspective.
cafard 12y ago
I think that I heard of such a design for bats thirty years ago, though at this point I'm not sure but it was for hammer handles. I do think that somebody had applied it to bats.

TheBiv 12y ago

I love the bit about the bat being 3D printed and then tested out by actual baseball players!!

zachrose 12y ago
Yeah that was interesting. I'm sort of curious what they were printed out of (plastic?) and how that's cheaper or better than just machining wood, or even machining a blank and rounding out the handle with and hand tools.
- dagw 12y ago
  I'm guessing it's a question of iteration time rather than price. Printing out 20 bats where each bat has one parameter tweaked slightly, and then iterating based on feedback is probably a lot quicker and easier using 3D printers rather than wood blanks and hand tools.
  - dublinben 12y ago
    It would almost certainly be quicker to crank out a wooden prototype from a CNC lathe than to print one in plastic. A bat made out of ABS plastic isn't really going to work anyway, so it's not much of a prototype.

BrechtVds 12y ago

> Its latest composite bat, the Avenge L140B, has special construction that allows the hitting side to flex like a spring. I'm not familiar with baseball (Belgian here) and was wondering how these things are regulated? Does each player have its own bat? So one team can already be at a technological disadvantage when the game starts?

bwhite 12y ago
The spec for baseball is available. [0] Regarding the bat itself, the regulations say it must be "round" (1.10), which probably rules out this particular handle. Other than round, the maximum weight, length, and diameter are specified. While bats close to these maximums were once widely used, almost all modern bats are well shy of those figures. Presumably the lighter, smaller bats of today more than make up in control and speed what they lack in mass. [0] http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/downloads/y2010/official_rules/2010_OfficialBaseballRules.pdf http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/downloads/y2010/official_rules/2010_O...
- stoolpigeon 12y ago
  The big market for these wont be with MLB players. It's going to be amateur softball and baseball leagues. They have rules about bats but they are much more generous and not as rigorously enforced. Though what you say about the bat being round must not apply to the handle as the article says these bats are already in use by at least one MLB player. I saw them for the first time this summer. We were in the US for a bit and I had the chance to get my son some batting instruction. (We live in Hungary and he plays little league here but it's harder to find coaches and such.) We did it with a friend and his son uses these bats. They are expensive. The wooden Axe bat he was using is around $100. And those only last so long. But anyway - when you have people dropping $300 - $500 on softball bats it's not hard to see how a company can do well selling to recreational players.
  - bwhite 12y ago
    Sure enough, it's been MLB-approved! One thing in particular that might be useful for non-pros is that the handle is CNC-cut to orient the grain in the correct way.

jasonkester 12y ago

The Suit is Back! http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html I wonder if we should start putting [Advertisement] tags onto submissions like this, in the same way we do for Videos, PDfs, YC submissions, and old blog posts.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

thaumasiotes 12y ago

I've got a novel idea -- what if we made baseball bats out of aluminum instead of wood? If we're going to say technological improvements to the bats are out of bounds, why are improvements to the handle part of the bats OK?

lmm 12y ago
Because them's the rules? Most sporting rules are arbitrary, but you need rules to have a sport.
cwyers 12y ago
Every bat has a "sweet spot," the part where the least vibration through the bat is produced on contact -- hitting the ball off the sweet spot means less "stinging," which you may have experienced if you've ever been to a batting cage and taken a bad swing at a ball. It's also the part of the bat where you get the biggest exit speed off the bat, and faster balls tend to be fielded less, so more exit speed means a better hit ball. Aluminum bats have a significantly larger sweet spot than wooden bats, and they also have a higher coefficient of restitution -- that's the measure of "springiness" that a bat has, which is another factor in ball exit speeds. (Although aluminum bat manufacturers have been "deadening" their aluminum bats for college use because of safety concerns.) Altogether, aluminum bats are substantially different from wood bats, and what you get is a game with a lot less skill involved and a lot more well-hit balls. This Axe Bat, meanwhile, is a pretty modest tweak that is allowed under the current rules for what players can use.
bkmartin 12y ago
Who said technological improvements to bats are out of bounds? Baseball bats have been going through all kinds of improvements for decades, especially in the aluminum market. Amatuer sports leagues typically force a certain length to weight ratio. You'll see bats marked at -7, or -5. Meaning the bat might be 30 inches long but weighs 23 or 25 ounces respectively. Keeping these ratios is about safety and fairness per certain age groups. You don't want some giant 12 year old swinging a -3 33 inch bat on a field the size they play on. That would be just dangerous. So between all the changes in what the bats are made from internally, to how thick the walls are, to how the handle is attached to the barrel, to the shape and type of the end cap, to the weight distribution... its all been improved on over the years. So I have no idea why someone would say technological improvements to bats are out of bounds.

showkhill 12y ago

'tis a round hurley

rmc 12y ago

Reminds me of a hurley, the bat used to play the Irish game of hurling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurling#mediaviewer/File:Hurling_Ball_and_Hurley.JPG https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurling#mediaviewer/File:Hurli... . Notice the metal band to keep the end from breaking. The ball is about as hard as a baseball. It can be caught in the hand, without a glove. Within the last few years they've had to wear (light) helmets. Hurling follows the Dodgeball approach of "If you can dodge a wrench...".

tlrobinson 12y ago

It's interesting the inverse would also be true: "Baseball Bat With an Axe Head Brings Less Power, More Injuries"