The Origins of the Baseball Bat

The Origins of the Baseball Bat
Easton baseball bats obtained our beginning developing wood vintage baseball bats for Columbus vintage round groups-- an interest still found in our woodshop. Recently, we sat down with baseball background expert Tracy martin to piece together the interesting, as well as often unusual evolution of the wood baseball bat throughout the 1800s.

Creating the baseball bat

In the 1840s, years before regulating bodies and bat makers, players had to style their very own sticks.

Throughout the very early days of baseball, players used whatever scrap wood they can obtain their hands on. A lot of used their hand tools to change an old ax manage or wagon wheel talked right into a "Striker's stick." soon, most of the gamers were making their bats solely from wagon tongue timber.

Wagon tongue wood as well as round bats

Wagon tongue timber is precisely what you believe it is-- extracted from the spokes of products wagon wheels used throughout the mid-1800s. A gamer would just shape a wagon wheel talked into a flat hitting stick, a little tapered at one end to permit an extra solid grasp. 

Made mainly of hard hickory wood, the bats were resistant as well as rarely needed to be changed versus the underhand throwing of the day.

Quickly, players began to realize that rounder bats offered a better factor of getting in touch with than level bats. For the following twenty years, as baseball started to develop momentum across the nation, gamers would certainly experiment with all sorts of bat sizes and shapes. 

However, something would certainly stay constant: round bats were right here to stay.

Experimenting with bat shapes and sizes

Without any controlling rules in location to determine the dimension, length, and also width of baseball bats, players freely trying out all types of mixes. Some players chosen bats that were brief in size, as well as heavy on the hitting end. Other gamers favored bats that were long, slender as well as light. During this moment, bottle bats became preferred-- an eccentric style of the bat with a large, rounded hitting surface.

Bats in the very early days were susceptible to constant splintering as throwing established to a much faster overhand style. As well as poor to acquire a replacement bat, many gamers began putting a nail string in the fragment to covering around the area. And draw splintered wood bats back with each other. The fix had an unexpected advantage: a much better grip. Soon, gamers tried out wrapping bat takes care of with tape. And cord, the string, is trying to find any kind of one-upmanship they can get their hands on Learn More...

The rules that altered bats forever

In 1859, a policy was passed to limit the size of bats for the first time. The professional national association of baseball athletes governing board agreed upon the brand-new measurements. Described as "Round, not be greater than two or one-half inches around its thickest component, and also to be of any size, to fit the striker."

Ten years later on, in 1869, the governing committee would indeed once more act to more define the limitations of the baseball bat dimension. This time around establishing their goal on accepting an optimum size of a baseball bat. The regulation was stated as "Size limit on bats, optimum 42 inches long"-- and also is still imposed under today's organization rules.