According to the AP, North Dakota high schools are switching from aluminum bats to wooden ones primarily for safety reasons. Line drives pop off metal much faster than sticks, and balls go much deeper as a result limiting the reaction time of fielders.

But even though the change will likely reduce injuries, albeit by a fraction, I suspect a large motivation for the switch is due to baseball purists like myself. Balls just sound better off wooden bats than high-pitch, clanky aluminum ones.

Oh, and the game is a lot better when played by real athletes that don’t cheat using performance enhancing drugs (I’m looking at you MLB).