school. We played the way baseball is supposed to be played (with wooden bats), no batting gloves or padding on arms, legs or feet. Put on a helmet, step in the box and take your licks. If you missed the meaty part of the bat you could feel the vibrations up into your arm pits! One ball coach at my school, no assistants...the kids would fill in as 1st or 3rd base coaches relaying signals. My school (Lake Taylor), like most others in the S Hampton Roads District, had no outfield fence. You aimed for the gaps and ran like Forrest Gump! Cold weather aside I loved every minute of it. ** Edited by tallahasseehokie at 3/28/2026, 4:02:48 PM

recommends not using their aluminum bats under 50 Fahrenheit. It's not only because of the way the bat is constructed it's also because the balls get denser in the cold which also puts more stress on the aluminum bats.

. . . aluminum. They are carbon fiber as are virtually all the leading brands (Easton, Demarini). Temperature does impact the flex in these bats. In fact, you can make an argument that below 40 degrees you're better off using aluminum alloy as those bats are impacted less by temperature. That said, whatever they use yesterday seemed to have plenty of 'flex'. I wouldn't change a thing. If a bat of two gets damaged you replace them. ** Edited by MidloHokie at 3/28/2026, 8:03:23 AM

And recommends using an alloy bat below that. The carbon fiber composite bats can crack and actually shatter in extreme cold. That said, I've not see a modern bat (and by modern I mean last 20 years) that had a "do not use below" temp of 40 or 45.

2000's. Those bats were lethal weapons. My daughter had a couple. I was honestly fearful for the opposing 3B when she hit in HS. OTOH I cringed in TB when she had to pitch to a kid with one. They had a high failure rate. I was tossing BP to her one day (I was always behind a screen) and the barrel snapped clean right above the grip wrap on the first one she had.