That’s the question facing legislators right now in New York City, where the city council passed a bill that would force all city high schools to use wood bats for high school baseball games, and not aluminum. Mayor Bloomberg for some reason or another says that the 40-6 vote isn’t good enough, and will do his part to crush the bill.

Bloomberg said the decision about the type of bats to use should be left to those in charge of youth leagues, and not lawmakers.

“There are risks in everything,” he said. “We want to reduce the risks as much as possible, we don’t want to destroy tradition of the game, but that’s up for the people running the sports.”

Youth leagues? The people running the sports? The last time I checked, the public school system was still regulated solely by the government… not youth leagues. I really love it when people come out and make completely asinine statements that prove they don’t have any concept of what’s going on… but there is probably someone out there who’s willing to pay for a re-election campaign if the bill gets vetoed, so by golly it’s got to go down.

Also, “we don’t want to destroy tradition of the game”? Yea, right, because every time I see old pictures of Mickey Mantle and Ted Williams playing high school ball they have their trusty aluminum/ composite bat in hand. I’ll admit, I’m totally biased since I’d love to see wood bats in play in high schools. I really think that the only argument you can make against the bill is the cost of bats, since aluminum bats don’t really break under normal conditions and wood bats do, it’s going to mean a few more trips to the sporting goods store. But when you have kids regularly topping 6′0″, 180lbs I think that they can handle the maple and ash.

Personally, I like this bill, but I’m kind of old school in that way.. Feel free to drop some comments and weigh in on the topic.. I’m really curious to see what other people think of the idea of banning aluminum in high school and up.

• City council might have votes to override bat veto (AP)