New Rules for High School Baseball Bats
MARIN, Calif. (KCBS)_ New rules have been established for the use of metal baseball bats in high school sports.
The agreement comes just five months after a Marin County teenager was nearly killed by a batted ball during a varsity baseball game.
16-year-old Marin Catholic Jr. Gunnar Sandberg was pitching in a practice game against De La Salle last March 11th when he was struck in the head by a line drive. He collapsed, was taken to a local hospital, and ended up spending several weeks in a medically-induced coma.
It wasn't too long before San Rafael Assemblyman Jared Huffman introduced legislation calling for a statewide moratorium on metal bats.
"There is this huge performance gap between metal and wood and it's created a safety issue," stated Huffman.
His bill was making its way through the legislature, when the governing board for California athletics, the California Interscholastic Federation agreed to make some changes.
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Huffman added that CIF has put California on the front edge of safety by accelerating new performance standards that will bring metal bats closer to the performance of wood.
Huffman says those standards were set to go into effect in 2012, but now they'll be in place in time for the upcoming high-school baseball and softball season.
In addition standards for protective headgear for pitchers, infielders and some coaches is being worked on with teams asked to participate in the upcoming year.
Incidentally Gunnar is on his way to making a full recovery.
