| Major League Baseball Teams Up with Forest Products Laboratory |
By Rebecca Wallace, Public Affairs Specialist
Watch any major league baseball game and you're likely to see a bat or two break on impact with the ball. Bat breakage during play has become a safety concern for Major League Baseball (MLB), and Dave Kretschmann, research engineer at the Forest Products Laboratory (FPL), is on board to help improve the situation. Kretschmann has been giving technical advice to MLB officials on the mechanical properties of various species of wood commonly used to make baseball bats, and a contract between FPL and MLB has been signed to continue the partnership.
Between July 2 and September 7, MLB authenticators collected every bat broken during games—more than 1,700 bats! The committee compiled relevant information for each broken bat, including manufacturer, model, dimensions, game situation when it broke, area in which the bat fragments landed, and video footage of each incident. FPL will be working with TECO, a certification and testing agency, to assess and categorize the bat failures—the first step toward reducing future catastrophic incidents.
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