LAS VEGAS –Experts who studied the shattered bats that abounded through baseball last season have made nine suggestions to improve the safety for players and on-field personnel, and all nine of them have been accepted. Not one of them is banning the use of maple bats, baseball’s Safety and Healthy Advisory Committee announced in a press conference.

The committee hired experts to perform CSI on more than 2,200 bats collected during a two-month period in the 2008 season. That research discovered that maple bats were three times more likely than ash bats to burst into two or more pieces. The same information showed that maple bats were four times more likely to have busted due to what a release calls “poor-quality slope of grain.”

One of the experts involved in the study said the purpose was “to isolate the reasons for the breaks.”

The suggestions being adopted by MLB are:

1. All bats much conform to slope of grain ratio — or how tightly packed the lines you see on a bat are along the barrell of the bat and also within the bat.
2. All manufacturers must place an ink dot on the face of sugar maple and yellow birch bats before finishing so that this slope can be easily identified.
3. The orientation of sugar maple and yellow birch bats should be rotated 90 degrees.
4. Handles of maple/birch must be natural or clear finish.
5. Manufacturers must track every bat they supply so each can be monitored and linked to standards.
6. Reps of manufacturers are required to participate in MLB-led workshop.
7. -9. Suggestions related to consitent meetings between MLB and the manufacturers, random audits of bats and a third-party certification for the bats.

The bats currently in circulation will be used until they run out, something that executives said they hope will happen at some point during spring training. “It shouldn’t take long,” said Sandy Alderson, the chairman of the committee. “The primary concern was bats breaking in two or more areas.” At total of 2,232 broken bats were collected from major-league games and submit to the league experts’ autopsies. A total of 756 broke into multiple pieces. Of chief concern to some players this season, like St. Louis Cardinals third baseman Troy Glaus, was the “javelins” or sharp busted shards that fired at corner infielders.

“I am hopeful that the implementation of these recommendations will do much to resolve the issues posed by the broken bat episodes we saw this season,” commissioner Bud Selig said in a release. “Most importantly to assure the safety of our on-field and personnel and our fans.”

-30-