Baseball's Safety and Health Committee thinks they have found a way for maple bats to be safer.
Maple bats are staying in the game.
Major League Baseball and the Major League Baseball Players Association said today they have accepted the nine recommendations concerning bats made by the Safety and Health Committee. The recommendations include new slope-of-grain requirements and other technical matters but did not advocate the elimination of maple.
An intedisciplinary study group formed by the Safety and Health Commitee found that maple bats were three times more likely to break into multiple pieces than ash bats. The study group attributed that to difficulty in determining the grain in maple. --Gerry Fraley
I will freely admit that my woodworking skills are basically nonexistence, so maybe the slope-of-grain requirements will fix the problem.
But I will say this: the problem needs to be fixed before someone gets seriously hurt.