Essay On Baseball Bats

Every sport is played with specialized equipment to enhance their performance. For example a football player wouldnt want to play with a volleyball, and a golfer wouldn't want to swing with a hockey stick (unless you're Billy Madison). Alot of people don't know the science and ergonomics behind various sports equipment. Baseball bats are no different. Most see a big wooden stick, I see an artisan crafted tool. Although in the beginning it didn't start that way.
In the beginning of what we call today “baseball”, bats were nothing more than a hunk of wood. Often players would use axe handles or wagon tongues. They would then shape it to their liking or play style using hand tools. Because of this the look of bats were all different, some were long, some skinny, some fat, etc. Mostly the bats back then were bigger and heavier than the ones today. Their thinking was the bigger the mass, the bigger the swing. So you would see bats 42 inches long and 50 ounces because back then there wasn't a limit to the scale of the bat. This would continue for decades until around 1884 when the biggest manufacturer of baseball bats came to be.
The most famous name in baseball bats came to be when 17-year-old John Hillerich took a break from his father’s woodworking shop in Louisville,
Such as the mushroom bat, the knob of the bat was tapered in a way that looked like the head of a mushroom, which was around in the early 1900s. Another choice was the two handled Lajoie bats, they had two handles which was there to help the weight distribution, and offer a handle for when the batter chokes up the bat. There is also the kinist bat which had a curved body much resembling a scythe. This was so when the batter hit the ball it would give the ball a different spin and would make it difficult for fielders to field the ball. All of the bats showed great innovations but couldn't outlast the way of the game and died