Do we need Special Session on Baseball Bats?

Philadelphia Inquirer story on the controversy over a bill to ban metal bats in baseball and softball from Little League through High School. The claim is that balls come off aluminum bats harder than wood bats. But if "safety" were really behind this bill, then we would make the balls softer, and we would ban wood bats (when can break and leave splinters), and we would require larger gloves, and move the pitchers mound back, and ban everything but nerf-ball and wiffle-ball.

Of course, Sam Smith lets the cat out of the bag:

House Minority Leader Sam Smith, a Republican from Punxsutawney, said yesterday that he had signed onto the bill as a cosponsor in large part because a wooden-bat maker was based in his Jefferson County district.

Smith said he was surprised to see the issue turn into a major political distraction.

"All these Legion guys are up in arms over it," he said, referring to participants in the American Legion's baseball program. "They don't want their world changed."

Note to Sam: you're not supposed to admit to being a shill, or that you thought only the special interests behind the new regulation would pay attention.