How To Cheat in Baseball BY: Ethan Hensel 4th period 12/8/2014

Does a corked wood bat hit further than a normal or a hollowed wood bat?

Background I chose this project because I love baseball. I have always wanted to see if a corked bat would hit further than my wood bat. my grandfather has the equipment needed to cork a bat and offered to help me.

Hypothesis If I cork a wood bat, and see how far I hit it off a tee, then the normal wood bat will still hit further.

Variables Independent: Type of bat normal or corked Dependent: How far the ball was hit Constants: Same baseballs,same field,and same tee height were maintained. The placement of the tee was changed with each phase to minimize wind.

Procedure Get materials: wood bat,tee,baseballs, tool to measure distance,drill,cork Measure 15 hits using the wooden bat Compute the average distance and standard deviation of hits using the normal bat Drill a hole 6 inches into the center of the wooden bat Measure 15 hits using the hollowed wooden bat Compute the average distance and standard deviation of hits using the hollowed wooden bat Cork the bat by filling the hollowed section with cork Measure 15 hits using the corked wooden bat Compute the average distance and standard deviation of hits using the corked bat

Data Bat Type Average Standard Deviation Wooden Bat 84.10 15.57 Hollow Bat 84.34 15.85 Corked Bat 91.69 19.82

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Conclusion My hypothesis at the beginning of the experiment was: If I cork a wood bat, and see how far I hit it off a tee, then the normal wood bat will still hit further. To test my hypothesis I started by hitting baseballs with a normal wood bat and recorded the distance of 15 hits.Then, I did the same for the hollow bat and corked bat. The normal bat’s average hit distance was 84.10 ft with a standard deviation of 15.57 ft.The average hit distance for the hollow bat was 84.34 ft with a standard deviation of 15.85 ft. Finally, the average hit distance for the corked bat was 91.69 ft. with a standard deviation of 19.82 ft.

Conclusion (continued) The data did not support my hypothesis since the average distance of the corked bat was 7 feet greater than either two bats. Therefore, the corked bat prevailed. I learned that corked bats, the lightest bat used, had a hitting distance that was greater than a wood bat. One problem I had to manage was how to make sure that the wind didn’t affect the hit distance of the ball. The placement of the tee was changed to minimize wind in each test, but it was still a variable. If I were to refine this experiment, I would use a pitching machine to determine if hitting a ball in motion, rather than from a tee, changes the result.