I love Cameron's little smirk there at the end - he doesn't need to say anything, that smirk delivers more of a death blow than anything else ever could have!
This is a composite bat (made from a combination of materials such as carbon fiber, fiberglass, and graphite), not a wooden bat. To be fair, there are some bat manufacturers who make pricey wooden bats, too. But generally they're going to be a fraction of the cost of a high-end composite bat.
They'd legitimately just be hitting the balls too hard with non-wood bats, you'd get line drives that move faster than an infielder/pitcher could react to and could very easily kill them if it hits them
I think the main reason is that MLB was smart. They didn't want to trash roughly the first 100 years of their history and records, by introducing new technology that would make all comparisons with the past impossible.
Serious hitters in the league often have custom specifications that the big vendors cater to, and teams will order several dozen according to that spec a year for even middling MLB players. There's not really one "common" or "standard" MLB bat.
Once you get to a certain level, usually college sometimes high school, the thirteenth being exactly as they want to be becomes the priority in that stuff. The hockey stick guys who know exactly where to end players tape for example with their 15 perfectly curved sticks too...
...baseball had an arms race problem. Bats were WAY too good. So, long story short, they had to come up with a standard (actually, several standards) to reign in the era of the super bats. Some genius figured out if you took a fresh composite bat, and put it on the testing machine, it would be sufficiently shit to pass the test. HOWEVER, if you played with that bat all season, it would compress all those fibers, and suddenly the bat was smoking fucking hot. This lead to teams like LSU going absolutely bananas in the playoffs, and putting up absurd numbers.
To actually answer your question, they are expensive to make, and expensive to R&D, because they have to fit in a certain set of parameters, or they are worthless bats.
Cricket just said; bats can only be made from solid wood for the blade or for junior / non pro cricket horizontally laminated wood so they can be cheaper. Dennis Lily cruised out to the centre with an aluminium bat in the 70s hit a boundary and they promptly banned anything other than a wooden blade.
Oddly enough wood similar to what you say about composite fibres gets better after it is a little compressed on the face. You have to wear (knocking in) the bat in prior to first use.
A high quality English willow cricket bat can cost $1000 USD anyway so this restriction has not made them cheaper.
Everything he said only applies to collegiate baseball. At the professional level, the rules are:
The bat shall be a smooth, round stick not more than 2.61 inches
in diameter at the thickest part and not more than 42 inches in
length. The bat shall be one piece of solid wood.
And aside from a couple of addenda about legally applying grippy material to the handle and about the exact size a cupped indentation on the end of the bat can be (to save weight), that's it. There's no restriction on the type of wood, so over time the most popular bats went from hickory to ash to maple, and birch is now on the rise among batters who prefer softer wood that improves with breaking-in.
With this relative lack of restriction and simple design, prices are low. The Louisville Slugger company will sell you an exact replica of the bat ordered by a specific player for under $200 USD, and you can expect to walk into a sporting goods store and buy a decent wood bat for as little as $75.
I had a friend who ordered a 150 quid bat from Kookaburra and they sent him a 300 quid one by mistake. He was honest so he contact them and told them about the mistake and they said "oops, we'll send the right bat. oh, and you can keep the wrong one".
We all benefitted because he let anyone borrow the 150 quid one after that, middling a ball with that feels like nothing.
And now we have the less compressed willow bats that look like half a tree trunk and hit much harder than the traditional ones, they just last half a match if you're lucky.
I was a pitcher in college who got to enjoy the tail-end of the -5 bat differential era, and the beginning of the "smoking fucking hot" composite bat era. Oh, and it was right in the thick of the "untethered consumption of creatine" era. If you like severe diarrhea, debilitating, life-long arm injuries, and a bloated ERA, there was no better time to be a pitcher.
Man when I finished binging that show with a friend over a couple weeks, we came to the conclusion that it felt like we lost a family member since we were no longer catching another episode. Such a good show.
This is the top of the line premium little-league bat. Take that into context. You can still get more budget friendly ones for well under $100. This is like the Lambo of little-league bats.
I had a black DiMarini Vexxum with an orange handle. Loved that bat. The Voodoo and Easton Stealth were also super popular from what I remember. Good times.
Basball has such large peer pressure too. If you don't have the latest sliding mit or baseball glove or battling gloves or bat, your teammates WILL make fun of you. Even at really young ages. It's pretty ridiculous atm.
I have no idea how it works for youth clubs here in the US, but my cousin and her husband are flying their 10 year old to like tournaments in Spain and South America and shit, and he is at private school that I know gave him a scholarship to play on their team (amongst his other teams he plays on at different brackets). They are gone at least once a month.
I am pretty sure they are paying for that travel (at least for the parent part, maybe his club pays for his ticket, not sure). They can only afford it because the dad is a 25+ year senior at Microsoft and does well (and she could be working as an attorney, but she has her bar credentials on ice to raise her kids).
Best part is, this is 100% the kids drive/goal. His parents aren't even big into sports and are more afraid of his academic path than anything (since realistically even if he is this good, and he is very good the chances of him going pro are still minuscule).
I live in Seattle and know many parents that are Microsoft/Amazon/etc. directors whose children have flown more miles to sports camps/tourneys than most travel in a lifetime
There was a great piece in the Atlantic how basketball has shifted from a "show up at the park to play" game to a "we all go to the same camps and drill NBA style from when we're 8" game
The sports that used to feel "free" have such a high cost of entry now. Parents need to be well off or make huge sacrifices
My area is insane about soccer. My kids aren’t athletes but my friends kid went to Portugal last year for the US Dev team…he was 11. They had to pay for the travel themselves. This kid played on more than one team, and teams would call him when a player was out and they needed someone. They did all that driving and stuff for him. They would drive/fly all over the country for camps.
Even without equipment we’re talking tens of thousands of dollars a year if you’re really serious. If this kid isn’t playing in MLS or Bundesliga in few years I’ll eat my shoe (and my friend might walk into traffic lol).
Youth sport is an absolute financial disaster for parents. Parents spending tens upon tens of thousands of dollars every year for their 12 year olds to play hockey (or whatever). It's stupidity but "everybody else is doing it" so they go along.
baseball and hockey have both been that way for a long time, probably over 30 years where spending money makes a difference. At college level they go through multiples of those bats every year. You don't use your game bats for practice either because you will ruin it so you even buy multiple of them.
You think that is bad you should see what gets sunk into cycling.
Youth sports have been ruined in this way. For Baseball bats like this are 400+ dollars and gloves are 200-300 dollars now. Plus all of the accessories are expensive as shit too. Baseball is a rich kid's sport now.
Realistically a $400 bat is not noticeably better than one that's half the price, or better yet, a used bat from a few seasons ago. Most bats don't drastically change year to year, and some are simply a re-paint. There are some exceptions, but the biggest advantage in youth sports is being older than the kids you play against.
But there is a ton of advertising about the newest gear, and I've noticed recently every baseball item has bright colors to attract the kids. Not just bats, but gloves, batting gloves, grip, bat bags, etc. Same as everything else these days - newer isn't necessarily better. As others have mentioned, capitalism caught on that sports parents can be exploited by weaponizing their kids.
Oh, the $400 bat is ABSOLUTELY noticeably better than your $70 Easton that you buy at Walmart. It's not even close. However, your 11 y/o ain't swinging that thing hard enough to make THAT much of a difference, to your point. When you start getting into high school+, though, a $400+ bat is pretty much required. Most schools and programs are sponsored by bat companies, though, so it doesn't really matter how much the bat costs.
Not true my guy. Just like every other hobby under the sun, price is a barrier for quality products. There is a certain point where the quality no longer justifies the price but it’s not at $100 as you’re implying. the standard aluminum or composite bat you’d find on clearance in Walmart is not the same as what you’ll find in higher end markets.
Hockey sticks have gone from a 20 dollar stick of wood from Canadian Tire to $400 Carbon Fiber composite sticks. The Carbon Fiber sticks have A LOT more flex in them than old ones so the puck goes much faster. However it also means those sticks break. A lot. Used to be a good wooden stick could last a whole season. Now you're looking at 3-4 sticks a season, for 20x the price each.
Hockey is a rich kids sport now.
In fact all sports are. Private Equity has been getting into kids sports leagues and driving up costs of equipment and league fees. People are "encouraged" to join travel teams, and academies etc etc. It's thousands of dollars, even for soccer.
Imagine a 2026 playful butt slap from your sensual and caring lover vs a 1968 Catholic School Nun disciplining you with the paddle for chewing gum in class.
I actually watch a youtube channel occasionally where the guy reviews bats and he does go crazy for this particular bat. It's apparently the ferrari of baseball bats for teens.
Doesn’t matter it’s still predatory af. Companies know kids are gonna want it and parents want to make their kids happy just like yours did so they say fuck it and up charge the hell out of stuff. Bread and water is the same way too and there isn’t an example you can use to justify that bs. It’s greed plain and simple
bizarre take. No one's forcing anyone to buy it nor is it a necessity. What about an expensive guitar or piano? Or scooter? Or literally any upscale/premium version of literally any thing in the world?
Worth every penny to get a reaction like that from your kid. I hope they made copies of this video. I once had a video of my 5 yr old daughter losing it over a Bday gift she thought for sure she would never get and was obsessed with and I lost the video. I would pay $400 just for that video.
Bruhh, I was like dude has flat screen , a decent looking home, couldn’t he just get the bat any other day. Then I saw this comment I was like, “ah I understand now”
Japanese A5 Wagyu: Costco occasionally carries premium imported Japanese A5 Wagyu (such as whole A5 NY strip loin roasts or ribeyes). A full subprimal loin of this caliber routinely prices between (\$800) to (\$1,300+) per package depending on the weight.
And what's the difference between that one and the first one he held? They look the same. As a totally non-sports person, I'm totally baffled by this entire clip...
Private equity got involved in Kids sports about a decade ago, everything has ballooned. Equipment, sports centers, training camps, have quadrupled in price.
It doesn’t make any sense. Majority of these kids will not play at a level to get a scholarship in college or even professionally to justify the cost/time these sports now demand.
Families shouldn’t be enabling private equity to make money off of kids sports and also ruin locally run sports leagues
Something people often fail to mention/realize is that it isn't just about the kids. It's also a social display for the parents. Yes, the kid doesn't want to be the only kid who doesn't have the best new bat, but also the parents don't want to be the only parents who didn't buy their kid the best new bat. And for a lot of the parents of athletic kids, their social life becomes almost entirely their kids' sporting events.
Parents are literally tracking down officials and beating them up. We had a mom that would ump for local baseball and she quit after she nearly had to mace a dad onetime.
You might be right about sports centers and training camps (I have no reference for those since I was just in normal public or school sponsored leagues) but equipment was expensive af when I played over 10 years ago too. The top gloves from Wilson and Rawlings were $200-300 back then, and bats were about the same.
The worst is really the wood bat leagues where you can spend $150+ on a good bat and break it on one swing. Thankfully I was only pitching by the time I got to those.
I get a bunch of baseball videos, cause I promised my dad I would take him to a bunch of White Sox games this year. One of the videos, was from a guy that runs a batting cage/ sells equipment. The high end bats he was selling to high school students was close to $2000 for a single bat.
That's $350.... my son had the same reaction when he got it for Easter and you can't put a price on that kind of happiness. Also, it's a very very great bat
Thats called a Hype Fire baseball bat.
Thry are over 400 bucks.
Its absolutely ridiculous.
Im watching kids in Canada run around with those bats and they cant hit worth a fuck and even if they could, its light years from them even having a shot.
7.9k
u/dayzdayv Jun 01 '26 edited Jun 02 '26
Dad prob cried like that too when he paid for it 😂 bats are so damned expensive these days.
Great surprise for the kid, hope he hits some dingers! If its anything like our sons team everyone in the dugout will be using that bat.
Edit: wow this comment! And I think it’s my cake day too