I seem to remember the same whaling and gnashing of teeth about 10 years ago,. For those of you that wernt in the sport they dumbed the bats down then for ........the sake of safety.......... So now we are talking of doing it again. The bats were hotter back then folks. The issue is that hitting has caught up with pitching and the Pitchers and their parents dont care for it.
There was a time when Fast Pitch was a pitchers catchers game. That was when small ball was king. Why was that? Because the hitting at that time ****ed. It was all any one could do. And at that time select was not as popular as it is now. Heck for us old timers the rule of thumb was you let your dd play slow pitch so she could work on her defense because there wasnt any offense in fast pitch.
Fast forward to 10 years down the road and look whats happened, power or long ball has entered the sport. It is now more exciting and more popular than ever and growing at a almost rampant pace. You cannot have things both ways, If you want the offense once again to play back seat to the pitcher/catcher you will doom this sport back to the past when only a select few played and pitching was king ( or queen since we are discussing girls )
We want out kids to play like boys, then set on the side lines and lip whip them because they dont and then act like they should be put in catchers uniforms to play the game because there is a chance someone is going to get maimed.
I am by no means down playing safety. I would never want another child to suffer an injury. But no matter what you do that risk is always there. No matter how safe we try to be and how much the sport becomes regulated.
Batters had to get better to face pitching and they have accomplished that, now for the second time there are some that want to level the playing field for the defense. Guess what no one did that for the offense it had to struggle and work to get better. Pitchers have to do the same.
It has now become so much of a concern that they are changing the strike zone in college to allow chalk plus to pitchers on the outside corners to help tame the offense. If pitchers do not want a worthectimy then get better at hitting your spots, changing speed and levels of the pitching. You throw the ball down the middle of the plate its coming back at you twice as fast. Why do colleges now look at junk pitchers more than power pitchers. Because unlike the olden days its almost impossible to blow a ball by hitters.
Its growing pains, It will never be even, there will always be dominate pitchers that can move the ball with speed, and there will always be dominate hitters that can match. Let em play ball.
Tim