{"id":1238,"date":"2006-09-02T08:02:50","date_gmt":"2006-09-02T16:02:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fastpitchwest.com\/morningbrief\/?p=1238"},"modified":"2006-09-02T09:08:56","modified_gmt":"2006-09-02T17:08:56","slug":"home-runs-stealing-thunder-at-sr-canadians","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/morningbrief\/?p=1238","title":{"rendered":"Home Runs Stealing Thunder at Sr. Canadians"},"content":{"rendered":"

Eighty (80) Home Runs in Five Days<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"
\n<\/a>(Click logo for official website)<\/em>
\n Prince George Citizen<\/a><\/p>\n

Home runs stealing thunder at nationals<\/strong><\/p>\n

by SCOTT STANFIELD Prince George This Week
\nThe outfield fences are not any closer to home base than they were 30 years ago. If anything, a home run should be more difficult to come by, since the fence is 10 feet high, as opposed to eight feet in days gone by.<\/p>\n

Yet there have been somewhere in the neighbourhood of 80 home runs hit after the first five days at the 2006 Canadian senior men\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s fastpitch championship at Spruce City Stadium.<\/p>\n

What\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s with the outrageous number of King Kong blasts at this year\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s nationals? Are the batters that much bigger and stronger than those of yesteryear? Not likely.<\/p>\n

The answer can be found in the shaft of an aluminum bat.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153You hate to compare the old days, but here, you would get 20 home runs in a season going out of this ball park,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Grant Williams, who spent many years playing and coaching fastball in Prince George. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think the pitching was any better in those days than it is today. In fact, it may not be as good. Have hitters made a quantum leap in the last 10 years? I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think so. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s all to do with the equipment. I think a home run shouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be something that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s cheap, it has to be earned.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s two problems, I think,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Williams added. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153One is they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve taken away the integrity of the game with so many home runs, and then, secondly, there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a safety issue. You can move the fences back and lessen the impact of the long ball, but somehow you have to lessen the impact on the infielders and the pitchers. The ball comes off that bat like a rocket and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s unsafe. I think they really have to look at something, and I hope it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not a financial issue where they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re committed to staying with these composite bats because of the funding that they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re getting from manufacturers. They need to put the integrity and the safety of the players first priority, and that means going back to wood bats.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Williams said pitchers are particularly at risk since they are off-balance and only 40 feet away from batters after throwing the ball.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153He doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have time to get set to protect himself,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153You look at baseball in this province and a lot of the colleges in the United States, they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve banned the aluminum bats and gone to wood. Two reasons. One is safety issues, and number two was professional hitters have to use wooden bats. College players need to make that adjustment. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been quite a few college players that have been very successful with aluminum bats and haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t been able to make the transition to wood. The professional leagues certainly would like to see everybody use wooden bats.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Dave Koch, a coach of the Prince George Black Bears, would like to see the outfield fence moved back a few feet to the 250-foot mark.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153It (home run situation) is a combination of the bats and it is a combination of the ball,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Koch said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Jeff (Hill) tried to get wooden bats for our league final here because there is an experimental league where they use (wood) bats, and I guess it worked out OK.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

When he hits the field, Koch usually catches or plays in the line of fire at third base.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153When you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve got guys like Evan Potskin (of the Black Bears) who come up and turn on a ball, or Randy and Lance Potskin, when they can turn on a ball and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s coming, anything that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s going to help slow it down a bit, using a wooden bat, that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s fine. I ain\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t gonna complain.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s something they keep talking about. They realize it. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s something like 40 or 50 different bats that are illegal right now because there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s too much pop in them. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s gotten to the point where they can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even keep track of what bats are legal and what aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t anymore. Going back to wooden bats wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t bother me – kind of interesting. For years, the hardball men\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s used the aluminum bats, then they went back to those wooden bats about five years ago. Back to the real game wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t hurt.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eighty (80) Home Runs in Five Days (Click logo for official website) Prince George Citizen Home runs stealing thunder at nationals by SCOTT STANFIELD Prince George This Week The outfield fences are not any closer to home base than they were 30 years ago. If anything, a home run should be more difficult to come […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[16],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/morningbrief\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1238"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/morningbrief\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/morningbrief\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/morningbrief\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/morningbrief\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1238"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/morningbrief\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1238\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/morningbrief\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/morningbrief\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/morningbrief\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}