

Baseball Bat With an Axe Handle Brings More Power, Fewer Injuries - x43b
http://www.wired.com/2014/08/axe-bat/

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jasonkester
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.

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colmmacc
The handle is very similar to an Irish Hurley;
[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d4/Hurling_B...](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d4/Hurling_Ball_and_Hurley.JPG)
, 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).

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esquivalience
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.

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easytiger
Err, also, a err, axe?

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esquivalience
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.

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BrechtVds
> 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?

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bwhite
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_O...](http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/downloads/y2010/official_rules/2010_OfficialBaseballRules.pdf)

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stoolpigeon
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.

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bwhite
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.

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bkmartin
This will help in soooo many ways. This will reduce the following dangers:
1)broken and splintered bat shards 2)bats flying out of a hitter's hand and
endangering fans, player, and coaches 3)potential to reduce hammett bone
injuries.

If the power and accuracy claims hold up then it could also help level out the
current status of the game being tilted in favor of pitching since the end of
the steroid era. There had been talk of lowering the mound in the MLB to help
level the playing field, mind the pun :)

It is definitely an interesting concept. I'm not sure how well the bat will
hold up over time vs a traditional bat since you are hitting the ball the on
the same side every time. This is going to slightly flatten the face of the
bat over time and it will be interesting to see how that plays out.

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rmc
Reminds me of a hurley, the bat used to play the Irish game of hurling
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurling#mediaviewer/File:Hurli...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurling#mediaviewer/File:Hurling_Ball_and_Hurley.JPG)
. 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...".

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projectileboy
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.

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have_faith
>patented axe handle

If like others have alluded to, that this is far from new. Should they have a
patent on it?

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rurounijones
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
just posted a bit about this upstairs ^

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

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

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zachrose
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.

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dagw
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.

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dublinben
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.

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showkhill
'tis a round hurley

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thaumasiotes
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?

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cwyers
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.

