Swinging the lumber isn't always easy for NECBL players

North Adams SteepleCats' Sean Conley, left, and Sean Parker show the difference between aluminum and wooden bats at Joe Wolfe Field this week. Both Conley and Parker played in North Adams last season, giving them a distinct advantage in learning how to adjust to using wooden bats. Photo: Ryan Hutton/North Adams Transcript

But aluminum bats — some people are never weaned off those.

They have become the de facto hitting implements from Little League through college to adult recreational leagues. The only ones who still use wood are the pros and those lucky collegiate players talented enough to play in wooden-bat summer leagues.

That explains why plenty of North Adams SteepleCats (and other NECBL players) will walk back to their dugouts in the coming weeks with frustrated expressions after titanic swings lead to popups instead of line drives.

"Aluminum bats have that little extra pop," new SteepleCats head coach Al Leyva said. "A little flare ends up falling in, or a weak grounder ends up getting through the hole. It takes a little while for people to catch on to wood. At first, they get jammed and either break their bats or hit a little popup."

The transition from hitting with aluminum to swinging with wood isn't an easy one, and it helps explain why the NECBL traditionally skews in favor of pitchers. Last year, the 'Cats hit only eight long balls in 1,380 at bats. A home run rate that low was partly the result of Joe Wolfe Field's spacious confines, but the adjustment to wooden

"Your swing tends to get long with aluminum because you can get deeper hits and you won't break anything," Sean Conley, who is back for his second season in the North Adams outfield, said. "The sweet spot is just bigger. With wood, you have to avoid breaking your bat, and you have to shorten your swing as a result."

Conley feels pretty confident making the switch this year because he's already spent two summers swinging wooden bats — with the 'Cats last season and with the Watertown Wizards of the New York Collegiate Baseball League two years ago.

"It was a big change," Conley said of his experience with the Wizards. "I was a little nervous beforehand because I had grown up playing with aluminum my whole life. It took me a while to get used to it, but once you do, it's just like any other bat you've ever used. All you have to do to adjust is learn to swing at better pitches. It just takes a little while to adjust, but we've all been working on our swings our whole lives."

According to Leyva, returnees like Conley should get into the swing of things pretty quickly. It could take two weeks, though, for less experienced players to get used to hitting with lumber.

"It takes about 10 to 14 days for people to adjust who haven't played with wooden bats before," Leyva said. "For those who have, it's a much shorter adjustment.

"I tell the kids to keep their swing the same. The only difference is they have to make better contact. They can't hit the ball on the edge of the bat and get lucky. They have to get the center of the bat on the ball, right on the money."

The science (not to mention common sense) backs up Leyva and Conley's explanations.

According to "The Physics of Baseball," a book by Yale University professor Robert K. Adair, a ball struck 380 feet by a wooden bat will travel 410 feet when smacked by the "catapultlike elastic properties" of an aluminum bat.

"Balls hit short on the bat — near the handle — are propelled more efficiently with an aluminum bat, and with less vibration and stinging of the hands, than by a wooden bat," Adair wrote. "There is more room for error with an aluminum bat."

The prospect of switching to wood hardly fazes college players. It's actually one of the main attractions of joining a team like the SteepleCats. As former MLB Commissioner Fay Vincent explained in the first episode of the documentary "Eye on the Dream," the NECBL offers an experience that participants can't get from their collegiate squads.

"Professional baseball wants to see how kids perform with a wooden bat," Vincent said. "So these leagues — these so-called wooden bat leagues — perform a valuable service. They let scouts see kids from the good baseball programs in the summertime playing with wooden bats."

When asked before the first practice of the season about making the adjustment to wielding carefully carved sticks of ash rather than metal rods, most of the 'Cats were confident. Many of them had already swung wooden bats, whether during practice or with previous summer league teams.

Outfielder Max Pinto said he often used wood while playing in recreational league in his hometown of Palo Alto, Calif. Thomas DiBenedetto, a shortstop from Trinity College, played for the Pittsfield Dukes two years ago, and he hopes that previous season spent swinging wooden bats will help him this summer. John Servidio, a sophomore outfielder from Barry University, has even more experience with wood.

"In high school, we never touched aluminum except in games," he said. "My coach thought that if we swang wood in practice, we'd do really well with aluminum in games. I actually prefer wooden bats to aluminum ones now."

He's not the only one, either.

"You only really learn to hit a baseball when you start hitting with wooden bats," Conley said. "It's more of a challenge, but I love it."

There is, of course, another benefit.

"When you go back to aluminum during the college season, it kind of boosts your ego a little bit," Conley said with a laugh.

Conley and Servidio are the exceptions, though. The learning curve for other players throughot the NECBL will likely be far steeper. And until they figure out how to use their new bats most effectively, there will probably be plenty of unhappy faces at the plate.