TWmccoy
3DX Connoisseur
There were issues the entire conference season with bats failing either in the wrapper or passing fresh out of the wrapper on Friday afternoon and failing Saturday night when the final four got retested. I know Rip Riporti of Juno had a long conversation with Stro about this at at least one event. My understanding is that USSSA took a few bats from each manufacturer used at the Major World Series and put them through the same tests that are done on the model samples prior to approval. It's been reported that Suncoast and Juno had their bats fail those tests, i.e. if they had submitted those for approval they wouldn't have gotten a stamp. No one knows yet what the fallout from that testing will be. I don't know where the speculation that a decision would be announced today came from, I haven't heard anything but I'm pretty far removed from the people that make those decisions, at least until I get to Florida next month for CC.
I think 240 bats are simply going to have be made with thicker walls. What you're describing here is crap, and manufacturers shouldn't be allowed to make bats that fail so quickly. Most slowpitch players don't have endless budgets to be buying 10 bats a year.
IMO 240 bats should all start at about 300 and work their way down from there. Starting at 250 (or whatever) is dumb.
I don't care if USSSA drops the hammer on Juno and Suncoast. Maybe doing so will convince other manufacturers to make a better/more durable product.