It seems to me the more I watch baseball, the more broken bats I see. luckily it hasn't resulted in serious injury to player or fan.
After I retired from cricket professionally, I opened a sports store with another professional cricket player in his name which gave me access to the technical sides of how products for cricket were made and the science behind them.
One such product is called Extratec. It has been approved by the International Cricket Council (ICC) and is now preferred by nearly all professional cricketers today.
Cricket as a sport has a long and rich history similar in a lot of ways to baseball. Extratec is a clear adhesive which is applied to the face and edges of a cricket bat, like a sticker or decal, giving it a protective coating to stop the bats from splintering or breaking. The great thing about Extratec is that it does not add or take away any of the characteristics of the bat itself. By this I mean that it won't enhance performance or stop the bats from doing it's natural thing. You don't want to lose that "natural" sound of the ball hitting the bat, but also you don't want to see any rebound qualities that Extratec does not have to give batters and advantage.
Extratec in it's original state was developed in the United States to protect the blades of helicoptors. it is both extremely tough and lightweight. The thickness of the adhesive is 0.35mm and weighs less than an ounce. Tests and trials were carried out by the ICC on the ping and performance of a range of cricket bats with Extratec as opposed to a normal bat and there was absolutely no reduction or enhancement on the bats performances. if a bat splinters or breaks it would normally be held together by the adhesive or drop to the ground close to the batsman.
As the old saying goes "PREVENTION IS BETTER THAN THE CURE" and i think the time has come to address the broken bat issue before someone gets injured or seriously hurt. Whether Extratec can work on a baseball bat as opposed to a cricket bat made out of willow remains to be seen. It's time for the MLB to relax their rules and trial what may become a good thing in the future. It may also help in conservation for those that care about saving trees as there would be less breakages in years to come.
