A number of sports around the world make use of distinctive equipment, such as tennis racquets or hockey sticks. Meanwhile, baseball is one of the most popular sports in the United States and Japan, and this sport makes good use of leather catcher’s mitts and wooden or metal bats, too. Any baseball player, whether a pro athlete or a casual player, may want to visit local sports goods stores to get the right metal or wooden bats (and mitts) for a game. Some players may also try baseball bat shaving and rolling, and rolled bats or shaved bats can perform better than non-doctored bats will. What can a player expect when they visit baseball bat shaving and rolling services? These baseball bat shaving and rolling services may carefully alter a bat to enhance its performance, taking care to not damage the bat in process.
Rolling Wooden Bats
When it comes to baseball bat shaving and rolling, it is wooden bats that are rolled, and metal bats are shaved. Wood is the traditional material of baseball bats, and often, it is ash wood that makes these baseball bats. A fresh bat will need some breaking in after it is purchased, and as the bat strikes baseballs, the pressure will bend and break the fibers in the bat over time. This is to be desired, since a thoroughly broken in bat will flex better and send balls further when they are struck. A player may have a collection of fully broken in bats that they like to use during games.
However, these wooden bats always run a risk of getting damaged during practice, and a player may not want to break their prized wooden bats during practice sessions. So, they can purchase fresh wooden bats, and then take them to baseball bat shaving and rolling services to modify them. At such a service, staff members will place the wooden bat in rollers and allow the pressure to simulate the process of using a bat in games. The rolled bat will then have distressed fibers that allow it to perform just like a naturally broken-in bat, and this makes the rolled bat a great substitute for the other bats during practice games. Care should be taken so that the bat is not rolled too hard and damaged.
It may also be noted that rolled baseball bats are not permitted for use in sanctioned games, and on-site experts might be able to spot those bats. But rolled bats are a fine option for practice games or for casual games where official rules are not enforced.
Shaving a Metal Baseball Bat
Some sports goods manufacturers create metal bats, which prove popular today. These metal bats have a hollow body that contains padding to make them flexible, and prevent them from shattering during use. But these bats cannot be rolled for peak performance like wooden bats, so they are rolled instead. A player may look online for shaved metal bats and purchase them, or they can take their own metal bat to baseball bat shaving and rolling services and have their bat doctored for them.
To do this, a metal bat’s end cap is removed, and the bat is placed on a lathe table and held in place with an assembly. Now, the lath table will carefully feed the metal bat’s exposed interior to a rotating grinder, which will shave away the padding inside. Only a few ounces of padding is removed, and care should be taken so that the grinder does not remove too much material. Once this is done, the metal bat is removed and its cap is replaced. It is now ready for use.
If too much material is removed from the metal bat, it might shatter during use, and the same is true if any padding is removed from the handle. But if all this is done correctly, the shaved metal bat can strike balls further than regular ones, and that may make shaved bats a popular choice for casual games of baseball. But shaved bats are not to be used in official games, and players are cautioned against using them outdoors in temperatures below 65 degrees Fahrenheit.
