More people drown in swimming pools each year than in bathtubs so should we do away with pools and only allow people to swim in their bathtub? People fall off of perfectly good ladders every day but should the ladder company be held responsible when someone loses their balance or doesn't set the ladder properly? People burn their hands every day while cooking but should the stove manufacturer be held responsible for an accident caused by the victim? There is NO good reason why the bat manufacturer should be held responsible for producing a perfectly good bat that is used for the purpose intended. The boy died in a tragic ACCIDENT which could have happened whether a metal or a wooden bat was used.

This lawsuit is as stupid as the ones against gun manufacturers who are sued when their products are used to kill someone and it's got to stop somewhere. Greedy, ambulance-chasing lawyers are a major part of the problem and those that take these ludicrous cases should be disbarred. I can't think of any attorney that I know personally that would have touched this case but then again, they've got common sense and ethics.

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"Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways - Chardonnay in one hand - chocolate in the other - body thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and screaming "WOO HOO, What a Ride!"

Did you read what I wrote? I was talking about the difference between wooden and aluminum bats, which obviously you did read because you addressed it below.

Are we talking about Tools or Sporting goods here?

WOW, yeah, fuck the people, I mean if it's good business, it's good business.
You're right, a bat is not as complex as a car, so any good mom or dad who picks up an aluminum bat in Target should just know that it is much more likely to kill someone should the ball it hits strikes someone in the head, because if they don't, they're retarded and their kids deserve to die. Right?

Swimming pools are known to be dangerous. Kids playing baseball? Not so much. Ladders? Seriously? Ok, if the ladder maker sells different models and one is known to kill or maime people by normal use, then yes they should be sued. If a Stove is used in the way it is intended and is more likely to burn it's users, then yes.

This one is on the line.... However if it is proven that aluminum bats are more likely to kill people, than it shows that the company willfully and knowingly produced a product that should not be used.

By saying the parent is the dumbass for buying it (most likely not imagining the end result), and saying the corporation can produce it for the dumb people to buy, is stupid.

Corporations already have very little liability. They fear nothing. The business decisions they make can cause deaths and destroy our environment, all in the name of profit.

That is what you all are not putting together, to say it is ok for these companies to make products they know are more dangerous than they should be, in the name of profits, you are putting a dollar sign on human life.

What are you worth?

To add to the last post,

Board room full of execs who say "well the aluminum bat liabilities could cost us because they kill more people than the wodden bats, but they will increase the bottom line more than potential payouts, so we should go ahead and make them" = good business

Mom who says "hey Tommy, do you want the aluminum bat or the wooden one?" = dumbass.

Only in America.

Baseball bats are known to be dangerous also. They've been used as weapons (obviously not the intended purpose) and they've been known to hit baseballs out of the ball park. If a kid is standing in the infield and a major league player hits a ball directly to him while using a wooden bat, chances are good that the kid will be hurt or killed if that ball hits him in the head. My older sister found out the hard way that a softball to the face hit by a teen using a wooden bat hurts really, really bad so it's not hard to imagine what a baseball hit by a pro would feel like.

I never said that the parents were dumbasses for buying it. Hell, I bought one for my son who, btw, also found out the hard way to catch the ball or chip two of your front teeth.
This case isn't about a corporation making a bad product, it's about a tragic freak accident which happened to involve their product. If a pitcher throws a 95 mph pitch and it hits you in the head, are you going to sue him or the producer of the baseball? I wouldn't because if I put myself on the diamond, I know that there are risks involved and any resulting injury is nothing more than an accident. The only way to 100% insure that I don't get hurt is to stay off the field.

When you consider how many people are actually killed yearly by balls hit with metal bats, I think it's stupid have a conniption fit over them.

What am I worth? That depends...would it be my fault if I made the decision to play baseball and not catch the ball when it came at me or would it be the fault of the bat manufacturer?

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"Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways - Chardonnay in one hand - chocolate in the other - body thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and screaming "WOO HOO, What a Ride!"

I guess you can call me and my father dumbasses then because I bought one for my son just as my father had bought one for me.

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"Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways - Chardonnay in one hand - chocolate in the other - body thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and screaming "WOO HOO, What a Ride!"

sort of goes back to common sense......*look, fire..should I play with it*?

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Anyone who thinks freedom comes cheap, please put the blindfold on and stand against the wall.

IT IS TIME for Americans to take back the country and start a new government.

It doesn't really matter. Both wooden bats and aluminum bats can be dangerous. Hitting a ball with a metal pipe creates a dangerous environment. That is the fact to which I was referring. As for the difference between the two, if you really want to comparison shop to such a detailed level, yes, you'll have to do your own research. But that's a comparison shopping issue, not a safety/liability issue.Baseball bats are tools used in sports. We are discussing tools in general in this analogy.Nobody is saying "fuck the people," we're saying "power to the people." If they don't want to buy the aluminum bat, they can buy the wooden bat, or none at all. It's called choice.No, they should know that bats, in general, are dangerous, and that any trace of statistical fact that separates the two is their responsibility to figure out. It's like a skydiver demanding that research be performed on whiskey to determine how much safer it is to drink 1.0 shot of it vs 1.1 shot of it prior to jumping.

I know this is a stretch for some here, but imagine for a moment that your devising a product for the general public.

Would you like to be held responsible for every way people could hurt themselves with it?

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January 21, 2013: The End of an ERROR.

"Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become more corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters."
"When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic."
"The Constitution only gives people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself."
---Benjamin Franklin

Exactly! Anyone with common sense realizes that you can get hurt when playing sports, driving a car, swimming, walking, etc. but it's a risk most of us are willing to take because it's called living. To exist in fear of everything is just that--existing--and I'm not willing to spend my life just existing.

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"Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways - Chardonnay in one hand - chocolate in the other - body thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and screaming "WOO HOO, What a Ride!"

You didn't answer my question. You stated that "most coaches think they distort the game and don't teach inner fielding skills correctly and they're dangerous".

As interesting a read as what you cut & pasted was, it did not illustrate that what you said is true.

It's a fucking baseball bat. Product liability? I say again: It's a fucking baseball bat. Anyone who doesn't know that using it can be dangerous has no business playing baseball.

And your earlier attemopt to politicize this still colors any point you try to make on the issue...

Oh, horseshit.

Do you honestly believe your local Little League coaches and high school coaches are getting $20,000 for using certain bats? That's absolutely fucking ridiculous. Again, if they were so dangerous, surely they would be outlawed at those levels.

Oddly, though, I think you'd be hard-pressed to find a wood bat on any Little League field in America...

First you try to make this an "us vs. them/liberal vs. conservative" thing, and then you resort to personal insults and attacks.

That, more than anything, is proof that you have no valid argument here...

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For those who have fought to defend it, freedom has a taste the protected will never know...



If it wasn't for double standards, liberals would have no standards at all...

Careful, you're likely to pull a muscle making a stretch like that...

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For those who have fought to defend it, freedom has a taste the protected will never know...



If it wasn't for double standards, liberals would have no standards at all...

Why do parents buy a metal bat instead of a wooden one when the league they play in makes it optional? Well, let's see, I've never seen a kid break an aluminum bat, but I've broken several wood bats by hitting high inside fastballs, so there's the cost savings. And yeah, kids know they can hit the ball harder with an aluminum bat (or at least they think they can), so guess which one they want?

The league the guy got killed in required aluminum bats. I assume to save money.

So, what's the science? On average you gain about 8 mph over wood, but every kid's different. Most of the speed gain is from two things: you can swing a metal bat faster and it builds up energy in the bat, like a spring. Give me a corked wood bat anytime, you pick up the same speed, and it sounds a whole lot better and feels a whole lot better.

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Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys. ---P. J. O'Rourke

I don't have the statistics at hand, but considering how many children play baseball, and how few fatalities there are, I would say that baseball is a very safe sport.

Also, most, if not all, younger children can not hit the ball "at well over a hundred miles an hour anyway". The article said that he was killed while pitching in a legion game, which if memory serves correctly, is a league for boys in their late teens. By that age, they are often physically men, not boys.

I don't believe for a second that a warning label would have made those parents stop their son from playing baseball. Considering the vast amount of baseball that is played in this country, and the extremely rare instance of a player dying while doing so, no reasonably sane person with even a tiny bit of baseball knowledge could conclude that the risk was anything more than negligible.