August 29. 2008 -- Wood Bats: It’s Decision Time!!!! The controversy in baseball over wood bats vs. aluminum bats is long and actually pretty boring. The debate is filled with velocity rates and torque and power generated and a lot of other mind-numbing crap. The reality is this; baseball with wood bats is just better. The debate always surrounds issues like cost and safety. What associations and leagues have to decide is what are the pros and cons of each bat type and make a decision, which best fits the parameters in which they work and without question, cost and safety are two deciding factors. Having said all of that, if OSBA wants to remain a viable choice for men to play competitive baseball, OSBA must go to Wood Bats. Many associations in the same realm as our league have made the switch with nothing but positive results. Swinging aluminum is fine for weekend warriors with beer guts who just want to get out and have some hacks. Tin is more than adequate for rec leagues and house leagues to just get out there and see if you can hit the ball over the fence. If that’s what OSBA is and aspires to be than they should indeed “crank tin”. If however, they aspire to be thought of as a viable choice amongst leagues like COBA, NDBL, NCBL, EOBA or GTBL than the switch is inevitable and crucial. Many of OSBA’s players like Johnny Dewolfe, Matt Belbeck, Steve Gallant, Gavin Rajiva, Jay Woodford, Eric Conlon and many others play in these leagues that use wood bats. The real issue is this; what is OSBA’s mandate?? Is it to be a rec/house league or is the level of competition they aspire to, that of a league that requires a higher level of competition than just “signing up and lacing em up”. If it’s the higher level of competition the trusty OSBA leadership aspires to, than the choice is an easy one; switch to wood bats. The threats will come, rest assured, from the likes of Anthony Cole “but we just bought a whole bunch of new aluminum bats and if OSBA switches to wood, we are leaving”. Other dog shit teams that perpetually occupy the cellars of OSBA will cry that any effort beyond just showing up on game day is asking too much (see Bloor 2008). How does BoDonk deal with those threats and the specter of losing 2-4 teams? He thanks the Baby Jesus. BoDonk is of the opinion that this league is a 12-team league, which has masqueraded itself as a 16-team league in some egomaniacal thrust to take over Senior Men’s baseball in Ontario. In this case, less is more; its simple addition by subtraction. This league needs to shave off teams like Brooklin shaved off wins this year. You know when you get right down to it, it’s all about natural selection, the strong move on and the weak die off. It’s this principle that keeps the collective group strong and feasible. You see, occasionally you have to thin the herd, and it’s now or never. If you don’t pick off the sick and lame then they will pick themselves off mid-season and make a mess of things (I think we have seen this before). What you run the risk of by not changing this league and keeping it strong is that instead of bad teams being “thinned” the good teams may decide to look for greener pastures because these blood sucking teams are draining them of their life-blood in some baseball version of a parasite. Maybe some of the good teams leave looking for playing alternatives or maybe some of the good players leave because they want to play at a higher caliber than just an “aluminum rec league”? This may seem like a “slippery slope” argument but I think it’s entirely plausible that this could happen. OSBA teams are getting sick of trying to say they are on par with other leagues when we are playing with tin and 12 man lineups. What’s next, we pull out the black mat and pitch for ourselves??? Well maybe then at least the Tigers might have a shot at the playoffs. I think we will learn a lot about OSBA this year when the issue of Wood bats is broached at the off-season meetings. The decision on that, I believe, will be a defining one for the league. It will chart the course for the years to come as to what OSBA really is, a rec league or a competitive men’s league. There is no right answer here, just a defining one. BoDonk hopes that soon enough we will all enjoy the crack of the bat instead of a ping. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Well, I would like to thank everyone for reading my first blog installment this week. BoDonk has been offering his services around the league to any site that would have him writing for them. My first thought was to go to the Mississauga Stars as they had been the “soft place to land” for people with opinions like BoDonk since the Guestbook’s inception (thanks goes out to the Stars for that). However, my negotiations with the Stars powers that be became strained after a slew of late night phone calls and voice messages brought the negotiations to a halt. The calls were of a harassing nature and soured my desire to write for the Stars website. Many of the calls were from John Harvey telling me that he wanted my first article to be on the banishment of Cam McKnight from OSBA because off his employment of the “great equalizer” - the “dirty spitball”. Although curious as to whether or not Harvey would know a term like “great equalizer”, I believed and listened to Mr. Harvey. I politely told him that if I did indeed blog for his team’s site that the banishment of one Cam McKnight would certainly make the short list of inaugural blog topics. What really began to discourage me was the voluminous amount of calls and voicemails I was receiving - all after 3AM - the most disturbing of which was a conversation between a Stars player and Mr. Harvey discussing whether or not Harvey could come bail him out after his DUI arrest. I then asked myself, why would he call Harvey instead of calling Cornish??? Weird. All of this commotion led me to inform Stars management that I could not write for their site, at which time Harvey told me to “take it like a man” and while I did not understand what he meant, I thank him for his sage advice. Well, there are a lot of tight races this year and the anticipation for the second half has me as excited as the web administrator for the Ontario Diamond Jacks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! There have been many topics of interest in the first half: the Bloor situation, the Bulls perfect half, the surprising play of Forest Glen and Barrie, the OSBA “wood bat” tournament, the “brawl” between the Twins and ODJ. Even with all of this excitement the second half promises to be just as exciting.
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