In response to the massive influx of reader inquiries (1), I thought I'd provide some follow-up info regarding illegal bats.

The very short answer is that we play under NSA rules, and the bat must be on the NSA list of approved bats before it can be used.

The longer answer is that our opponents were using a composite bat. Composite bats are either made of a graphite-fiber composite material or have an aluminum core with graphite lining. They are lighter than aluminum and have larger barrels and bigger sweet spots.

Wednesday pre-game, our opponents conferred with us to find out if a certain bat was legal. It was.

Then they never used it. Apparently, they thought they were being slick. All 10 batters were using the same bat (always a tip-off), and it wasn't the one they asked about. And the balls jumped hard off the bat no matter how ugly the swings.

I'm familiar with how much those bats can improve bad swings because we can use them at St. Helen's and the difference is obvious. I've split outfielders on line-drives with a composite bat with the same swing that usually results in a looping liner over the infield.

I've also played enough to recognize it when a batter is getting results that are much better than his form.

The umpires do not carry an approved bat list, though they should. They don't know it by heart because there are hundreds of bats on it. As a result, they just okay anything that doesn't say 'composite' on it. That's a problem because bat manufacturers know they sell more if it doesn't say it.

I'm going to print an approved bat list and keep it in my bag from now on.