Emulating Yankees' Innovative New Baseball Bat, Angels Debut Deformed Club
"This bat is our only hope."
When the New York Yankees debuted their new ‘torpedo’ bat this season, teams and fans were stunned by the ingenuity.
The ‘torpedo’ bat moves wood and mass to the area of the bat where a player tends to make contact with the ball.
The effect? While it may be too soon to say, the New York Yankees outscored their opponent, the Milwaukee Brewers, 20 - 9 on Saturday with 9 home runs. Not a bad start!
While other teams will likely start to imitate the ‘torpedo’ bat design, the Los Angeles Angels have gone another direction, debuting their own ‘Spanking’ bat.
This bat is an oblong, deformed club and doesn’t look legal in the slightest.
While the Yankees’ ‘torpedo’ bat was designed by an MIT physicist employed by the team, the Angels’ ‘Spanking’ bat was designed by an 82 year-old Veteran on Fiverr for $200.
The freelancer spoke to us about his design:
"I sort of got the inspiration from my childhood. If ever I kicked my Meemaw’s dog, my Pawpaw would beat my ass with a paddle.
I always thought that paddle would make for a good bat."
It doesn’t.
Despite their best efforts, the Angels struck out 17 times in their first three games and only hit 1 home run.
To make matters worse, the MLB Commissioner is rumored to be cooking up a stiff punishment for the Angels for their use of this bat, which ignores various league rules.
The owner of the Angels, Arte Moreno, responded to the backlash, saying:
"The only way we can be competitive again is if we win on the margins.
This bat was our only hope of doing that.
Not pitching, not player development, not free agents, it was all riding on this bat."
While the organization awaits league punishment for their use of the ‘Spanking’ bat, they’ve begun developing a new bat that abides by league rules: a bat with motivational quotes on it.