Sharing Bats

This is a new situation for me so I wanted to see how some other coaches handle the it. How do you deal with the fact that some girls on the team have their own bats and some don't. I coach middle school and needless to say our budget is tight. I have a few girls with really nice bats and some with cheap or no bat. When I was coming up we all used a team bat and if someone brought their own bat to the game or practice you let anyone that wanted to use it. I made the rule that either you let everyone or no one use your bat. That way I would not have the "well you let her use it why can't I" division on the team. I was really heart the other day when one girl would not let another use her bat just to hit in the cage before a game.

 

I dont understand why someone should have to share their $250 bat if they dont want to. I see kids use others bats with little to no respect for the value of that bat - throwing them in the dugout or dragging them around the field. Some of these kids buy their own bat or pay for a good part of it with money they earned or paid their parents back with extra chores at home.

If you dont want them to use their own bat that is one thing and that is fine but to make them share their property... nope. Not the helmet either.

I'm not trying to be difficult. If you ask me as a parent for help with bats, I would be happy to donate to help buy a bat for the team or donate a practice bat to the team.

 

Cool !!

I will PM my address, Bek could use a new bat for college !!!

 

"as a parent [of a kid on the team]...."

 

Question is will the team replace it if something happens to it?Bats cost alot of money and if there are players that want to protect their equipment they do not have to share in my opinion.If they have the money to pay for cleats they have enough money to by a used bat at play it again sports for 20 to 40 dollars they have plenty of old bats that use to cost 200 dollars.You could also do a fundraiser to buy a bat for the team.A car wash for a day probally would be enough to take care of that.Motivate yourselves if you want it bad enough then you will get a team bat.PM me and I'll give you a 200 dollar bat my kids do not use anymore how about that!!!!!!! 33L 25oz

 

Sharing, or not, of a bat should be the personal decision of the player. There are any number of good reasons why she might not want to.

With some bats the more they are used the better they get. That is not the case with every bat, though.

 

We share

I agree with the policy of if they let one use it, they have to let everyone use it. That is a great way to prevent divisions or clicks on the team which is something that will tear a team apart.

We let anyone on the team (HS and TB) use my DDs CF4 bat. Some take her up on it and they are respectful of the bat and its cost, others don't but I wish most of them would. It drives me crazy to see some of the girls using 5 - 10 year old cheap alluminum bats that go *PING* and the ball goes nowhere. Man if they just used a decent composite bat...

As for what happens if the bat breaks, it is warrantied so as long as it was not misuse, there is no issue other than we are out of bat (we have a backup) for a week or two.

We also donate bats that our DDs either grew out of or don't use anymore to a local middle school team so they can have a few good bats even if they are older.

 

......nice post. As you know we've been through bookoos of bats over the years and I saw in my little ones batbag a couple that any kid is welcome to.
The bat she uses now is a Demarini Phenix that her older sister used her first year in college.
What is the Demarini bat that is like a silver blue color?

Fish

 

If you want to put your bat into public usage that is great and my daughter always shared her '04 and '08 RT with her HS and Travel teams, it is just the way she was, but I would not presume what someone else's wishes were.

 

The silver blue Dimarini is the CF4. DD has one and allows her team mates to use it as long as they don't abuse it.