Montana American Legion baseball adopts wooden bats

On July 25, 2003, 18-year-old Brandon Patch, a southpaw pitcher for the Miles City Mavericks American Legion team, was killed after a line drive rocketed off an aluminum bat and struck him in the head. Now, almost two years later and in an attempt to prevent future tragedies, his parents and others are on a crusade to see the national pastime, at all levels, revert to wood bats. This week, the Patches watched Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer sign an unprecedented resolution calling upon American Legion baseball, with its thousands of teams nationally to adopt wood bats out of concern that aluminum counterparts propel balls at dangerous speeds... CSM has more