Why aren’t wooden baseball and softball bats the same?
Tuesday, November 10th, 2009 at
12:49 pm
Apparently you can’t use a wooden baseball bat to play softball, since the softball rules for a bat are different. Why do softball and baseball have different bat shapes to begin with, and what does whatever minor shape difference they have matter with a wooden bat?
Softball barrels are bigger because the ball is bigger. This is the reason why you can’t use a wooden bat.
The somewhat conical shape of a baseball bat caters more towards explosive contact. Hitting the ball hard, far, etc. Softball, being just a toned down version of baseball really, makes it more difficult to hit the ball violently by it’s size, and the fact that the bat is nearly perfectly cylindrical.
I would think given the different sizes of the balls and the speeds that they travel to the bat, there is a major risk of the bats breaking if used in the alternate game they were designed for
They have to be different because the balls are different. Just like softball gloves are different from baseball gloves.