Many sports around the world today are known for using certain balls and gear during gameplay. Golf calls for golf balls and clubs, and tennis players need a net, court, ball, and racquets to play. Players will also wear particular uniforms, shoes, gloves, or helmets for some sports, such as American football. Meanwhile, baseball is hugely popular in the United States and Japan, and everyone is familiar with baseball bats and catcher’s mitts. Softball is also popular, using similar bats and softer balls during gameplay. Pro athletes and casual players alike need the right gear, and they can get wooden or metal baseball bats and softball bats, along with the right outfits and catcher’s mitts, at local sports retailers. But it is also possible to modify these bats, and rolled bats and shaved bats perform very well in casual games. A local baseball bat shaving and rolling service can help with this.
Shaved Bats
Many softball and baseball bats today are made of metal, and they have a hollow interior with padding to reinforce them and make them flexible. These bats do not have any wood surfaces and don’t get broken in like wooden bats, but they are popular, and they can be doctored, too. Some players may choose to look online and find shaved metal baseball bats for sale, and purchase them for practice or a casual game. In other cases, the player may have a regular metal bat and bring it to a softball bat shaving and rolling service in the area.
The workers at these bat shaving services will remove the end cap of a metal bat to expose the hollow interior, then place that bat on a lathe table and slowly feed it to a rotating grinder surface, open end first. That rotating grinder will scrape away a few ounces of the metal bat’s interior padding, and once that is done, the end cap is replaced, and the bat is ready for use. A shaved bat is more flexible than normal, and that allows it to strike balls further than a regular metal bat. This is great for casual games and practice sessions, but take note that shaved bats are not allowed at sanctioned games. Also, shaved metal bats do not perform well in temperatures below 65 degrees Fahrenheit.
Shaving a metal bat must be done just right, and no padding should be removed from the handle, or it becomes too fragile and may shatter during use. The bat may also break if too much padding is removed from the body.
Rolled Bats
Meanwhile, wooden bats are also quite popular, typically made of ash wood. These wood bats have natural fibers that will be bent and broken during use, and that is desirable, since a fully broken in bat is more flexible and can strike balls further than normal. A few hundred ball strikes may achieve this effect, though that takes time. A player may have a few prized broken-in bats in their collection, then use rolled bats as proxies for practice sessions. Using these rolled bats can help protect the prized wooden bats from getting damaged during a practice session. An interested player can find rolled bats online for sale, or take a wooden bat to a local rolling service.
At a bat shaving and rolling service, the workers there will pass a wooden bat through a series of pressurized rollers, which will distress the bat’s natural fibers to simulate the process of breaking it in normally. Care should be taken when doing this, since excessive pressure will simply damage the bat instead. But if done correctly, this will result in a bat that mimics fully broken-in wooden bats, which is suitable for practice sessions and casual games. But wooden rolled bats, like shaved metal bats, are not allowed at sanction games, and experts on the field might identify them on sight. Rolled bats for sale are for casual use only.
