Torpedo!

Torpedo! From the Latin Tor, meaning a book publishing company specializing in Science Fiction paperbacks, and pedo, meaning uh, let’s not go there. 

Torpedo! 

No longer the answer to a trivia question about McHale's Navy, torpedos are back. 

Hey, quick question... If the Yankees sink the Dodgers pitching staff in this year's World Series by means of their torpedo bats will any body make that connection? And will they lose their job? 

But I digress... 

People need to stop complaining about the new bats and calling it cheating. It’s not cheating. The bats are made of wood. Not some polymer or made from repurposed superballs…

Quick side story here… 

During the 1980’s I had a friend who had a friend whose father was a jobber. He had several warehouses down in Santa Ana. I got invited to go look at them for some reason that is still not clear to me and in one of them, in sacks stacked floor to ceiling were actual Wham-O superballs. Real ones with the atomic sign on them and everything.

There were so many of them that the floor of the warehouse was covered in loose ones that fell out of ripped sacks, and you could glide across the room like on ball bearings.

They guy said I could take some and, being polite, I took ten. I should have stuffed my pockets. I still have two. I gave away three and five more suffered from the fate of all superballs… the dreaded second bounce into oblivion. Gone!

He told me that the ones in the warehouse were bought from the government. Apparently the Air Force was looking into using giant bowling ball size superballs as a weapon. 

The  idea was to drop a superball into a building and let the bouncing action destroy the room without an explosion or fire. It would also limit the damage to the room in which it was dropped.

Couldn’t tell you how the bowling ball sized superball got into the room but hey that’s what tax dollars are for.  The plan obviously failed as any of us could have told them. You drop it on Moscow. It bounces once. Hits Prague. And then right into the Adriatic Sea. Gone!

But I digress…

Look, the Torpedo Bat is just an equipment upgrade. Like bigger infielder gloves or running shoes.

Did anybody complain when runners switched to running shoes? I mean aside from Buster Brown whose ill-fated attempt at the Bruce Jenner Buster Brown Running Shoe was a large part of why Buster Brown went out of business. 

If they stuck around they could have tried again with a line of high heels.

But I digress…

As long as the bat is made of wood and meets the height, weight, and length MLB specifications it’s fine.  Besides, there’s a downside to moving the sweet spot, in closer to the hands. The wood available for the outside pitch is reduced, affecting the velocity when going to the opposite field on an outside pitch.

And therein lies the solution for the pitcher. Don’t come inside. Work the outer half of the plate as much as possible to reduce the efficacy of the torpedo bat.

In other news…

Rafael Devers is still hitless and has struck out 15 times 19 at bats. People are blaming it on weight gain. Maybe he’s been ordering too many of the wrong kind of torpedos. 

(Don't watch this. It's stupid!) 

Or, it could be because he’s trying to suck his way off the Red Sox because they gave 3B to a guy who can actually play the position.

What does this mean for the Yankees? Well, we still haven’t overpaid for a third baseman yet and we’ve gotten third basemen from Boston before, albeit with mixed results. Boggs and Youklis. I hope this doesn’t come to pass although, I’ve heard pinstripes are slimming.