A few weeks ago, the New York City Council chose to ban aluminum bats in high school baseball, saying a move back to wood bats would make the game safer; more recently, the Detroit Free Press decided to run a story with local opinion on the topic of aluminum bats. And for that story, they happened to contact a very familiar baseball coach:

Chelsea baseball coach Wayne Welton, who has been coaching for 30 years, wouldn’t mind switching to wooden bats.

Welton’s preference for wood bats wasn’t a surprise to me, but I was interested to note that he does not consider it a safety issue.

“I just think that so many kids get a false sense that they’re pretty good hitters using that big barrel of the metal bat,” Welton said.

[…]

“If we used wood bats, we would develop better hitters,” he said.

And he has one other problem with aluminum bats:

“That ‘ping’ sound makes me cringe today,” he said. “I’d much rather hear the crack of the wood, myself.”

Welton’s quotes also made an appearance at the end of a Freep article concerning the likelihood of a similar ban in Michigan.

(If the Freep links are cantankerous, try reading the stories here and here.)