George Guido: What’s behind the HR surge in high school softball?

By: HSSN Staff
Tuesday, June 19, 2018 | 10:55 PM

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Softballs are flying out of the high school ballparks these days.

Home runs are being hit at a sometimes-dizzying pace, a far cry from the days when teams would scratch across a run and let the pitcher do the rest.

At a WPIAL semifinal doubleheader at Peterswood Park on May 23, six home runs were hit.

And these weren't fly balls that drifted over the fence. A West Greene girl hit one that went far past the outfield fence, over a cartway from the parking lot and into a retaining pond.

In the recent past, there wouldn't be six home runs in the WPIAL in a week.

It's not a case where just the larger-statured girls are hitting the long ball. The petite girls are sending balls into orbit.

After hitting a walk-off home run against Leechburg, Monessen freshman third baseman Hannah Yorty was amazed at her slugging.

“I was just trying to get the bat on the ball,” Yorty said. “I don't know if I'd hit one that far. I'm only 105 pounds.”

What is the reasoning behind the home run surge?

Is it the new Polyurethane softballs that have replaced the old cork-centered balls?

Is it the modern bats?

Is it moving the pitching distance from 40 feet to 43 feet in 2011?

Is it girls who undergo weight training and attend batting clinics?

Is it all of the above?

“There have been more hit over the fence in the past few years,” Deer Lakes coach Craig Taliani said. “I think I had coached four seasons before someone hit a home run.”

Taliani said he believes it a combination of girls getting stronger and moving the pitcher's rubber back 3 feet that have contributed to the offensive explosion.

But the new Dudley 43-147 Thunder Ball also could be a factor.

Before the season, Taliani and athletic director Charles Bellisario noted how the new balls bounced a bit higher off a cement floor than the older ones.

Burrell coach Brian Eshbaugh thinks it's the bats.

“I know the pitching isn't what it used to be,” Eshbaugh said. “But the ball is just flying off some of these bats. They're legal in high school, and some parents are spending as much as $450 on these bats.”

One in particular, the Easton Ghost, is making some pitchers look like they have seen a ghost.

Then there is the issue of doctored bats.

Last year at the Maryland state finals, I was told a guy who bills himself as “The Bat Doctor” set up a tent across from the field to offer players rolling and shaving of bats. His website says a ball has to be “hit 500 to 800 times” before you start seeing a difference in the bat.

“These new bats, especially the composite bats, are unbelievable,” Freeport coach Sam Ross said. “We hit 30 home runs as a team last year. This year, we hit 20.”

Four of those 20 were in one playoff game at Plum.

A concentration on hitting also is given as a reason.

“We will sometimes spend half of our practices on hitting,” Ross said. “Our girls will get as many as 100 swings in practice. It's a different game now than when I first started coaching.”

The PIAA adopted its official ball, the Dudley WT12Y Thunder Heat, a softball that uses “a precision blended crosslinked polyurethane system and is designed for high density and maximum resiliency.” All of the PIAA districts, such as the WPIAL, then followed suit.

As for the old cork-center balls, they were manufactured at a plant in Haiti. But the plant reportedly burned down, and now the high school balls are manufactured in China with synthetic materials.

Cork comes from Central and South America, making it difficult to harvest cork, then ship it to China and subsequently ship the finished product to the United States.

There is a list of banned bats that are distributed to the schools, but, effective this year, umpires no longer inspect equipment before games, leading to the possibility illegal bats could be slipped into games.

George Guido is a Valley News Dispatch scholastic sports correspondent. His column appears Wednesdays.