USATODAY.com - More players breaking their tools

ATLANTA — Atlanta Braves first baseman Adam LaRoche ripped a line drive over the head of Houston shortstop Jose Vizcaino and watched the ball as he started for first base. It was then that LaRoche suddenly saw Vizcaino dive to the ground.

After breaking 20 bats this season, Baltimore Orioles outfielder Jay Gibbons is fearful of running out. That's why, for the last couple of weeks, he has ordered a dozen bats a week — just to be safe.

"It takes two weeks to a month to get them — and I don't want to run out," says Gibbons, who broke bats in six consecutive at-bats in the Orioles' last road trip. "You put in orders and they say, 'We don't have the wood,' and all of a sudden, you're using (teammate) Miguel Tejada's bat."

Although neither Major League Baseball nor the batmakers tracks the number of broken bats, players and coaches say there have been more in recent seasons — and most breaks are happening with maple bats.

Ash bats were used by 100% of the players until the late 1990s, when Joe Carter became the first to use maple. Gibbons uses maple but switches to ash when it's in the 40s or colder.

"Every game you are seeing (bats) break," Florida Marlins outfielder Lenny Harris says. "I don't know if it is the thin handles or the maple, but everybody is breaking bats. I haven't seen so many bats break like this."

Pitchers throwing inside more is another reason cited for why bats seem to be breaking so much. Old-time players, such as former catcher and Orioles TV analyst Buck Martinez, say the broken bats are a result of stronger players who grew up swinging aluminum bats. Players, he says, are swinging shorter, lighter bats with thinner handles to approximate the feel of the aluminum models.

Players routinely use the word "explode" when talking of the flying maple as they are left in the box holding the handle of the bat or dropping splintered wood to run to first.

"A lot more guys are using maple the last couple of years. When they break, they break clean," Florida first baseman Carlos Delgado says. "The ash, when it breaks, it cracks and splinters."

Carter decided to try maple because of flaking on some orders of ash, according to Hillerich & Bradsby, which makes the popular Louisville Slugger. Carter was looking for the hardest wood that wouldn't flake.

There are enough debates, stories, theories and urban myths about bats to fill a bookstore. There are even competing legends of how the maple bat craze began in 2000.

One is that Barry Bonds hit his 49 homers in 2000 and 73 homers in 2001 with a maple bat made by the Sam Bat company of Ottawa — and players started ordering maple bats en masse. Another theory is a player in the 2000 offseason used one bat all winter for batting practice and it didn't break. Word spread. Maple saves money; buy maple.

Jim Tyler, Baltimore's clubhouse man, says the team orders 11-12 dozen bats a season per player; it was half that amount 20 years ago. The cost of bats for the team has risen 50% over the last five years, traveling secretary Phil Itzoe says.

Chuck Schupp, the director for professional baseball sales for Hillerich & Bradsby, has more in-depth conversations with major league players than anyone and has heard all the tales of maple and ash.

Schupp will turn on his cell phone at 6 a.m. in Louisville and have messages left at 3 a.m. by players on the West Coast. As soon as he is finished taking those notes, a player is landing in Boston after an all-nighter from the West Coast and is calling to talk bats.

According to Schupp, 52% of players in the majors using the Louisville Slugger use ash and 48% use maple. Some use both.

Schupp says the growth of maple — which costs $58 a bat compared with $45 for ash at the big-league level — probably has leveled out and will stay about 48%-50%.

Then there's Bill MacKenzie, baseball consultant for Sam Bat. He says his company sees sales of maple climbing in MLB, as well as in the Japanese and Mexican leagues.

But the issue is not solely maple vs. ash and which is more reliable and sends the ball farther. Nor is it an overwhelming issue of safety. It is about the passion and nuances of the game's most sacred tool.

Florida catcher Paul Lo Duca has studied the grains of the two bats and says ash flecks, maple does not, that maple is one solid grain and ash has many.

Atlanta Braves first baseman Adam LaRoche thinks the companies' efforts to get all the moisture out of bats could be contributing to the breakage.

Marlins third baseman Mike Lowell can hear the ball hit the bat and instantly tell if a player is using maple or ash. He loves the sound of ash as he squares his bat on the ball.

Seventeen-year Houston Astros veteran Craig Biggio, a second baseman, says the flying barrels might have more to do with the ultra-thin handles and the weight of the bats.

When Martinez played (from 1969-86), the typical bat was 34 to 34 1/2 inches and 34 ounces. He says Louisville Slugger advised that a bat should weigh an ounce for every inch of length.

But today's players grew up using aluminum bats, which typically are 30 to 32 ounces and 34 1/2 inches long. So when they make the switch to wood bats, they go to lighter bats. "Now, 32 ounces is the heavy side," Seattle Mariners catcher Pat Borders says.

Elrod Hendricks, a former Orioles catcher and current Orioles coach, remembers Roberto Clemente and Manny Sanguillen of the Pittsburgh Pirates using 37-inch, 37-ounce bats.

Hendricks, whose bat was 36 inches and 38 ounces, says he sometimes would have the same bat for spring training, batting practice, the regular season, postseason and winter ball. "I could have a bat for two years. Once in a while, I'd break one."

Gibbons was playing first base against Detroit this season when he says a broken bat cost him a shot at a double play. He was fielding a ground ball and thinking about throwing to second when a chunk of wood soared over his head.

"I flinched and stopped," he says. "It's like a sphere coming at you. They come at you pretty quickly."

Baltimore pitching coach Ray Miller says he and other coaches always warn fans sitting near the dugouts to pay close attention to the action. In spring training this year, Miller saw a fan get hit in the temple with a broken bat.

Atlanta's LaRoche recalls ripping a line drive over the head of Houston shortstop Jose Vizcaino last year and watching the ball as he started for first base. It was then that he suddenly saw Vizcaino dive to the ground as the barrel of LaRoche's bat followed the ball. A splintery piece of wood was sailing toward the shortstop and landed in short left field.

"Hit it on the screws, dead solid, and the bat exploded," LaRoche says. "Next thing I know, he's on the ground trying to get out of the way of the barrel."

Gibbons says it's a weird feeling breaking a bat: "You take a full swing, and all of a sudden you are left with a bat handle in your hand. It's amazing some infielder hasn't gotten hurt."

But as Biggio says of the flying projectiles, it's "part of the game. It's going to happen."

Yale physics professor Robert Adair says no. He served on a committee commissioned by MLB three years ago and led by University of Massachusetts-Lowell engineer James Sherwood. The conclusion was maple bats were almost identical to ash in ball-striking characteristics.

But if maple is so much harder, how can so many barrels be breaking off and flying into the infield?

Biggio reaches inside his locker and picks up one of his bats and runs his hand along the handle.

"Bats use to be tapered and have a gradual thinning from barrel to handle," he says. "Now you see bats with the ultra-thin handles and big barrels, which means the bats can snap because they are out of proportion. Players want that bat whip with the thin handle."

Biggio says a 36-ounce bat was once acceptable, but now even the strongest players, such as teammate Jeff Bagwell, use 34-ounce bats. "The lighter bats and thinner handles might be why you are seeing more bats exploding."

Lo Duca says ash will flex at the handle, maple will not. That's why maple breaks cleanly. "There are no grains on the bat. It's one composite, basically. The ash has grains."

The maple vs. ash debate could get more complicated with the next evolution: beech, a hybrid between maple and ash that is imported from Europe.

Schupp says Louisville Slugger has made some beech bats — which cost $58 apiece, like maple, at the big-league level — and several players are using them this season.