Laying lumber to the ball

Thursday, May 10, 2007 | 7:28 a.m.

What: Region 18 baseball championship

Who: Community College of Southern Nevada vs. Western Nevada

When: 6 p.m., Thursday and Friday and 1 p.m. Saturday (if necessary)

Where: Morse Stadium, Henderson

The one-hopper drilled College of Southern Idaho pitcher Jason Oatman in his right shin, then he quickly fielded it to start a double play at Morse Stadium.

Had Kyle Bostick of the Community College of Southern Nevada been swinging an aluminum bat, instead of wood, Coyotes coach Tim Chambers envisioned a different outcome for Oatman.

"His leg probably would have been broken," Chambers says. "Instead, he finished the game."

In the Scenic West Athletic Conference, wood rules. Junior college conferences in the Northwest and Arizona use the splendid splinters, too.

Everybody else in collegiate baseball endures the high scores, marathon games and rocket shots - and the irritating driverlike ping! - that metal bats produce.

Southern Idaho hitting coach Skip Walker once attended an experiment by Steve Baum, aired on "60 Minutes" and involving Major League slugger Ken Griffey Jr., that compared the speed of baseballs hit off metal and wooden bats.

The ball's exit speed off wood was 90 mph. Off metal, it was 160 mph.

"That's a big difference," Walker says. "I still have those notes. If a big, strong guy hits it right on the sweet spot ... it's amazing."

He agrees with Chambers that Oatman likely escaped serious injury.

"Then again, he is from Montana," Walker says of the lefty, "so he's a tough kid."

Tradition

Walker, 62, guided Southern Idaho to eight National Junior Collegiate Athletic Association World Series, winning the championship in 1984. That season, Boomer Walker, who now manages the Golden Eagles, was a 12-year-old bat boy for his father.

The traditionalist in Skip Walker always winced when Southern Idaho racked up 15 or 16 or 20 runs, so he finally made his first wood proposal at the conference coaches' meeting in 1999.

It barely passed, by a 6-4 vote, for the 2000 season. The next year, the vote was 10-0.

"Politicking and begging," Walker says, "that's the influence I had. We also happen to have some really good baseball people in the league."

The Scenic West was a year behind the Northwest Athletic Conference, schools in Oregon and Washington, in switching to wood. Region I, in Arizona, followed a few years later.

Walker detested how aluminum bats provided artificial boosts to mediocre players and teams.

"They made too many people good when they weren't good," he says. "I thought, 'Let's get back to tradition.' "

Chambers believes top-flight Division I programs would switch to wood if they weren't so dependent on sweeping sponsorship deals from companies such as Nike that provide them with gloves, uniforms, cash - and aluminum bats.

"I think they'd like to do it," he says, "but from marketing and financial standpoints, they're not able to do it."

Wide eyes

Should CCSN win the Scenic West, or Region 18, tournament this week at home against Western Nevada, the Coyotes will advance to the district playoffs in Arizona next week.

From then on, including the NJCAA World Series that begins in Grand Junction, Colo., at the end of the month, it'll be pingball because aluminum bats will be used.

When CCSN won the Junior Collegiate World Series in '03, its players flexed their metal muscles.

"It was like Christmas," Chambers says. "It changes everything."

In Colorado, the Coyotes lost their first game and didn't lose again. Three times, they won by the 10-run rule, with a 10-run advantage, in the fifth. Once, they hit only four times. That game lasted 87 minutes.

"That team was special," Chambers says. "We threw the aluminum bats at them, and away they went."

CCSN center fielder Chase Leavitt saw the benefits of switching to metal sticks in 2004, when he helped Dixie College win the World Series.

Leavitt served a two-year Mormon mission in Milwaukee, then transferred to CCSN in the fall.

In the preseason, with aluminum bats, CCSN belted Cypress, a well-respected team from Southern California, 13-2.

"I think we'll remember that," Leavitt says, "when we do get metal back in our hands."

Getting too cute or cocky, though, will be dangerous. The switch can cause wide eyes, inducing long swings and a tendency to pull everything. Fences are not as close as they suddenly appear.

"You get more hits, more punch, more pop with metal," Leavitt says. "Seeing the ball fly around the yard can get you into trouble. You have to be smart and disciplined."

Heavy metal

No doubt Leavitt, who leads the Coyotes with a .341 batting average, has demanded attention from more than just opposing pitchers.

Hitting well in a wooden-bat league could give him an edge with professional scouts.

Easton Gust, a freshman shortstop for CCSN, was also influenced to attend the Henderson school because of the wooden bats of the Scenic West.

"I am here because I want to play in the big leagues," Gust says. "Swinging a wood bat for one or two seasons tells scouts a lot."

They don't use metal in the majors, do they? That's also what Walker had in mind in 1999.

"From a scouting standpoint, it was a no-brainer," he says. "They love it, absolutely love it. I think it's outstanding, too."

Wooden bats don't cost Chambers more than aluminum, either. Each Coyote receives six maple-wood Zinger models, at $48 apiece, at the start of the season. A quality aluminum bat runs about $300.

"People think it's more costly," he says. "In reality, it isn't."

And players like Southern Idaho's Oatman might have been very fortunate.

As players keep getting bigger and faster and stronger, Chambers predicts that serious injuries from balls struck by metal bats will rise.

"Hopefully," Chambers says, "it's not against the law for me to say that."

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