Amid safety fears, NJ considers banning metal bats

TRENTON, N.J. --Freckle-faced Steven Domalewski was 45 feet from home plate when a screaming line drive hammered the 12-year-old in the chest.

The ball hit the boy in the millisecond between his heartbeats, sending him into cardiac arrest. Three spectators rushed onto the field and resuscitated him, but the damage was done. He suffered brain swelling and went into a coma.

Four months later, New Jersey lawmakers on Thursday planned to consider banning metal bats from the state's youth sports.

State Assemblyman Patrick Diegnan says he was worried about the speed of balls shooting off aluminum bats even before he heard about Domalewski. Diegnan recalled cringing at line drives when his daughters played softball.

"The speed at which a ball comes off an aluminum bat can be so great that the reaction time for a pitcher to protect himself or herself is reduced to almost zero," said Diegnan, D-Middlesex.

Now 13, Domalewski was honored in August by the New York Yankees on Disability Awareness Night; his sister and brother accepted the award. His doctors then said he was just beginning to interact with his environment and would soon begin to focus on regaining speech.

His father, Joseph Domalewski, was expected to testify in support of Diegnan's legislation Thursday. The father of a Massachusetts boy injured when hit in the face by a line drive off an aluminum bat also was expected to testify.

Diegnan wants to mandate wooden bats for all leagues with players under 18. An exemption would be granted if a visiting team comes from out of state.

A 2002 study by Brown University said balls hit off an aluminum bat averaged 93.3 mph, compared to 86.1 mph for wooden bats, and found 2 percent of balls hit off wooden bats exceeded 100 mph, compared to 37 percent hit off metal bats.

"It can take less than a second from the time a pitcher releases a ball to the time he finds that ball careening straight back," Diegnan said. "Anything that can lengthen a fielder's reaction time, even fractionally, can go a long way to preventing a traumatic injury."

New Jersey wouldn't be the only state to remove the ping of the bat from youth baseball games. Illinois high schools have started a pilot program to test wooden bats, North Dakota high school teams plan to switch to wood next year and Massachusetts Catholic high school baseball teams have used only wooden bats since 2003.