No Metal Bats for NYC baseball youths!

From ESPN/AP:

NEW YORK — Metal bats will be banned in high school baseball starting this September in the nation’s largest school system after the City Council on Monday overrode a mayoral veto of the bill.

The measure outlaws metal bats under the theory that they produce harder and faster hits, risking injury to young players who have less time to react. Opponents, who include Little League Baseball and sporting goods makers, say there is no evidence metal bats are more dangerous.

Youth leagues and lawmakers are proposing similar bans in other areas, including New Jersey, where a 12-year-old boy went into cardiac arrest and suffered serious injuries after a batted ball struck him in the chest.

In New York City, Mayor Michael Bloomberg vetoed the bat ban earlier this month, saying the issue should be left up to those who run the youth leagues, not the government. But the City Council overwhelmingly knocked down the veto by a vote of 41-4.

“What we’re trying to do is reduce risk,” said Councilmember James Oddo, the sponsor of the bill.

Opponents argue that there is no scientific evidence proving metal bats pose a greater danger than wooden bats, and that the anti-metal movement relies on emotional anecdotes over concrete data. Some have said they plan to challenge the matter in court.

In 2005, an American Legion Baseball study found no substantial scientific proof to support the argument that wooden bats are safer than metal bats.

Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press

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My thoughts: Um… so are we going to start using tennis balls too? Put on umpire armor? Pads up and down youth’s arms so they don’t get hurt?

We’re going to end up with a generation of wimps. Everybody wins. Nobody gets hurt.

This is crap. This will make the kids who are already bad at the sport even worse. They’re kids. I’m not a parent (yet), but when I am, I assume my child(ren) will get hurt! That’s something called life. Let it happen. Probably easy for me to say since I’ve never been in a situation when my offspring was injured, but I have the feeling I’d get over it.