Maple bats are an accident waiting to happen
BILL SHAIKIN
'Somebody's going to get hurt,' Leyland says of the incidents that occur more frequently with different wood. Some already have been hurt.
You sat silent, scared, stunned. This was Dodger Stadium, in 1976, and Steve Yeager had collapsed on the field, blood spurting from his neck, the victim of a freak and life-threatening accident.
Yeager had been minding his own business in the on-deck circle. Bill Russell, the Dodgers' batter, took a swing. His bat shattered, and a fragment flew wildly into the air, slamming into Yeager's neck and piercing his esophagus. Surgeons removed nine pieces of wood from his neck.
In those days, before the invention of maple bats, that was an isolated incident.
Baseball bats: In Monday's Sports section, an article about maple bats being used by major league players recalled an incident involving Dodgers catcher Steve Yeager in 1976 when he was hit with parts of a bat that shattered. The article incorrectly said the accident took place at Dodger Stadium. It took place at San Diego Stadium (now Qualcomm Stadium).
"Nothing like today," said Yeager, now the manager of the independent Long Beach Armada. "The bats broke, but very seldom did you see one just explode, or see the barrel of the bat go flying."
You see that all the time now. They're all dodgers, all the teams and even the fans, dodging wickedly jagged edges of half a bat coming at them at high speed.
"It's mind-boggling," Detroit Tigers Manager Jim Leyland said. "Every game, somebody's ducking a bat. We spend more time picking the bat off the infield than we've done at any time in the history of the game.
"Somebody's going to get hurt. It's dangerous."
Somebody already has. In April, Pittsburgh Pirates hitting coach Don Long was nailed by a wayward piece of a shattered bat, opening a gash along the left side of his face. The damaged nerve has yet to recover, so he has no sense of feeling in part of his upper lip.
Somebody here already has. Susan Rhodes sat four rows behind the visiting dugout at Dodger Stadium in April, following the flight of a ball.
"I never saw the bat coming at all," she said. "All I felt was pressure and pain. Something smashed into the side of my face."
Rhodes, who lives in Sherman Oaks, needed surgery to repair a jaw broken in two places. She still suffers from numbness in her chin and lips, migraine headaches and memory loss.
"My niece's name," she said. "I couldn't think of that the other day."
Those stories, and the stories of many more near-misses, pile up on the desk of the commissioner.
"I have a lot of clubs every day sending me articles and telling me what happened in their ballpark," Bud Selig said. "I'm very sensitive. I'm very concerned."
In Yeager's day, the wood in just about all the bats was ash. But, after Barry Bonds tried maple bats and prospered with them, players scurried to order their own, to the point where the majority of players use maple today.
