The NCAA News - News and Features

The NCAA News -- March 29, 1999

NCAA, Easton reach indemnification pact

When the NCAA Executive Committee adopted new bat performance standards for the 1999 NCAA baseball championships, it did so contingent on the NCAA obtaining indemnification from metal-bat manufacturers. That contingency has been fulfilled regarding one metal-bat manufacturer.

Recently, the NCAA reached agreement with Easton Sports, a nonwood-bat manufacturer, to indemnify NCAA member institutions and conferences against litigation involving injuries due to individuals being struck by batted balls propelled by the Easton metal bats.

The NCAA currently is in negotiations with two other nonwood-bat manufacturers -- Hillerich & Bradsby and Worth -- regarding similar indemnification.

In mid-January, the Executive Committee adopted performance standards for nonwood bats for the 1999 championships that decrease the maximum allowable diameter to 2 3/4 inches to 2 5/8 inches and the length-to-weight unit differential from five to three (for example, a 35-inch bat will be able to weigh not less than 32 ounces). In adopting the standards, the Executive Committee voted that such action would be contingent on the NCAA receiving indemnification from nonwood-bat manufacturers.

In addition to receiving indemnification, resolution of the baseball bat issue took a step forward as the NCAA Baseball Research Panel held its first meeting March 11-12 in Indianapolis.

Created by the NCAA Executive Committee in mid-January, the panel met with representatives from selected baseball bat and ball manufacturers, independent scientists who have studied bat and ball performance, representatives from the Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association and a representative from the NCAA Baseball Rules Committee. The panel agreed to meet again, tentatively scheduling its second meeting April 16-17 in Chicago.

A seven-person group that includes experts in medicine, mathematics, research, physics, engineering and biomechanics, as well as the game of baseball, the panel is charged to report and recommend to the Baseball Rules Committee and the Executive Committee specifications for baseballs and nonwood baseball bats, as well as future certification protocol not later than July 1, 1999.

The panel is chaired by Milton A. Gordon, president of California State University, Fullerton. Gordon also is a member of the NCAA Division I Board of Directors. He is joined on the panel by James A. Ashton-Miller, research scientist in the department of mechanical engineering and applied mechanics and the department of biomedical engineering at the University of Michigan; Dr. Michael M. Carroll, professor of engineering and retired dean of the school of engineering at Rice University; Kenneth W. Johnson, professor of physics at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale; Dave Keilitz, executive director of the American Baseball Coaches Association and former baseball coach and athletics director at Central Michigan University; Richard A. Rasmussen, executive secretary of the University Athletic Association and a former member of the NCAA Division III Management Council; and Bryan Wesley Smith, clinical assistant professor of pediatrics and orthopedics and head team physician at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and the incoming chair of the NCAA Committee on Competitive Safeguards and Medical Aspects of Sports.

In a baseball bat-related issue, Steve Baum, a maker of composite wood bats, has filed a motion in a Kansas court to reinstate his lawsuit against the NCAA, the Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association (SGMA) and three metal-bat manufacturers.

Baum sued the NCAA, SGMA and three metal-bat manufacturers in July 1998, alleging they unlawfully conspired to not make metal-bat rules more restrictive to keep Baum from selling his wood bat.