After a weekend filled with great baseball, a lot of extra innings, and some weather issues presented by mother nature, two Easton teams have booked their tickets for Omaha and TD Ameritrade Park!
Big congratulations to the UCLA Bruins (3rd trip to Omaha in the last 4 years!) and to the Mississippi State Bulldogs (first trip to Omaha since 2007!). Both teams faced a lot of adversity on their respective roads to Omaha, but both battled to earn their places in the Mecca of College Baseball.
I am also happy to report that the new Easton MAKO bats played a huge role in both teams success in their runs through the Super Regional round.
For the Bulldogs, 5 out of 9 starters have switched to the MAKO (along with 2 S1 and 2 XL3 bats). Leadoff hitter Adam Frazier absolutely raked with his new MAKO. Over the weekend he went 8-11, including a 6 for 6 performance on Saturday with a double, triple, and 3 runs batted in as the Bulldogs produced a season best 2o hits in route to an 11-6 victory!
The Bruins have also taken a liking to the latest Easton bat innovation. During Saturday’s 3-0 Omaha clinching victory over Cal State Fullerton, 7 out of the 9 UCLA hitters swung the MAKO bat. Pat Gallagher and Shane Zeile led the offense, each contributing RBI singles in the first inning that stood up for the win!
2014 Rip It bats have hit the Internet, and will be on a baseball and softball field near you in the not to distant future.
Rip It is introducing seven new baseball bats, and three new softball bats.
Many of the new 2014 Rip It bats share the new R2 composite, AIR Technology, Harmonic Barrels, and new comfort grips. Some of the bats on the lower end use the older, R1 technology alloy, used on previous Rip It bats.
Rip It continues to lead the bat industry with a 400 day warranty on all of their bats, and a 30 day money back guarantee.
As soon as we have some demos, you can be sure we will put these new Rip It bats to the test. Rip It is an easy company to deal with, they just want people to be happy with their products, and they will stop at nothing to make sure that happens.
Here is another picture of the all new, 2014 Easton MakoBBCOR bat. We think it looks pretty good. We should have a new composite BBCOR Mako bat in our hands soon, and we plan to swing this bat non-stop. Our sources at Easton are more excited about the new Mako bats than we have seen for any bat launch in recent history.
We actually saw this bat in the top secret Easton testing laboratory about a year ago. It is pretty cool to see a gray bat in a lab turn into the next big line of baseball band softball bats. Easton Mako reviews will be posted as soon as we get some test/demo bats.
The Easton Mako baseball bat was revealed on the Easton Baseball FaceBook page today. Showing just a glimpse of the knob, the 33″/30 ounce Mako BBCOR bat looks to be 100% composite with an orange and white paint job. No word on whether the Mako will replace the S1, or if the Mako will be an addition to the Easton BBCOR bat lineup. As of today we do not know what price point this bat will be sold at, but we are guessing a price point above the current S1 and XL1 BBCOR bat, which currently retail for $399. Expect more details towards the end of Summer, 2013.
Easton Mako Bat
Easton has made huge strides in the BBCOR bat market in the past two years with the success of their Power Brigade bats. Look for the new Easton Speed Brigade bats for 2014. Trying to get back on top, DeMarini released the new Vexxum NVS BBCOR, and so far sales of the 2014 Vexxum have exceeded expectation.
In their slow pitch softball bat line up Easton has introduced yet another series, the Easton Raw Power bats. These bats come in a variety of sizes, weights, and colors. The Easton Raw Power B2.0 Slow Pitch Softball Bat is the bat I will concentrate on today.
Easton Raw Power B2.0 for 2013 bat has Easton’s exclusive, SIC black carbon fiber handle which reduces vibration, and the bat has a better overall feel. Because of the SIC carbon fiber composite in the handle, you feel very little vibration and maximum stiffness is still maintained all through the bat. There is no loss of energy throughout a swing.
To get a feel of how the SIC technology worked, I hit a few softballs off the end of the bat and also tried to hit some too close to the hands. There was some vibration in the one piece Raw Power B2 on the bad swings; however, I was distracted by how well I did hit the softball on the deliberate bad swings. In truth, I didn’t notice much of anything else.
I was an enthusiast of the Easton Raw Power B2.0 starting with my first swing. I was hitting the whole lot hard, and was reminded more of a shaved bat. Wherever I hit the ball on the barrel, it flew off the Raw Power B2.0.
The design of the Easton Raw Power B2.0 has quality engineering going from the 13.5 inch barrel to the new gauze grip tape. The B or L the in Easton Raw Power model numbers is to distinguish between Balanced or End Loaded in weight allocation.
It felt great to swing the Easton Raw Power B 2.0 Slow Pitch Softball Bat through the zone because it is so well balanced. There is a lot control on a bat that I would say is a joy to swing.
The 2013 Rip It Prototype Air BBCOR bat is their best this year. The 2012 best bat from Rip It was the exceptional prototype 2. Rip It continues to push the performance envelope even though they have not been in the market very long.
The newly introduced “Rip It Air” black bat with red lettering and gray accents is a sturdy bat and is all set to work. The feel awed me as soon as I picked it up. Four ounces were taken from the end and distributed all through the bat. Rip It made the wall thinner at the business end of its Prototype Air BBCOR by channeling out grooves inside the barrel.
The Rip It Air has all the pop that was advertised. This bat has as much pop as anything else on the market, and I have tried all BBCOR bats. This bat pops all over, and it is one of the things that differentiate the Rip It Air from competitors.
It is a real ego builder in the batting cage. Whether you hit the ball near the end or close to your hands, the ball flies off this baseball bat. Once you’ve square up the ball, you’ve sent out a challenge to the defense.
This bat is exceptionally well balanced when hitting the ball. You can control the Rip It BBCOR all the way through the swing zone. I was confident enough to hold on until the last moment and then drive the bat through the ball. Rip It has introduced a great hitting BBCOR bat to the market.
This bat feels and pops well, and the grip takes in the shock! The little vibration in this single piece alloy bat really surprised me. It was fresh and enjoyable to use a bat that has hardly any vibration on badly hit balls. This innovative 2013 BBCOR from Rip It gives you all the features you could want on one the finest BBCOR bats for 2013.
The performance is the focus of Rip It! The excellent Rip It Prototype Air BBCOR is offered at the best price you will find.
It has just been announced that Combat has been purchased by Bauer.
Combat, a manufacturer of high end composite baseball bats and softball bats, after initial success with the Combat B1 youth bat and the Combat B2 youth baseball bat, suffered major financial losses as a result of the sudden rule change by Little League that effectively banned the use of several of Combat baseball bats.
At the time of the Little League composite bat rule change, Combat youth baseball bats were the most popular and best selling baseball bats for youth leagues. Combat made the decision to accept banned bats back from customers, a move that cost the company a fortune, but one that was looked upon in the baseball community as ‘doing the right thing’.
The purchase by such a dominant company in the hockey gear and lacrosse equipment world should give Combat the much needed funds and organization to once again compete with giants like Louisville Slugger, Easton and DeMarini.
The DeMarini CF6 baseball bat is not out yet. We have heard rumors of late this year, but there are no details at all yet of what the bat is, or will be. But, we can sure make a good guess.
Our money is on a 2014 CF6 BBCOR that uses the all new Paradox Composite in both the handle and the barrel of the bat. This is what DeMarini did in the 2014 Fastpitch Softball bat lineup, and there is good reason to believe they will do the same in their baseball bats.
What is Paradox Composite? The new carbon fiber being used in high end Demarini bats for 2014 is both softer and harder. Doesn’t make sense? Let me explain… The way the engineers lay down the sheets of carbon fiber determines the final characteristics of the bat. So, in the barrel, they lay the material to be more flexible, and that allows for more elasticity and trampoline when the bat hits the baseball. In the handle, they lay the sheets down to form a stronger, stiffer feel, which keeps you from losing energy by making the bat “whip” too much (like a golf club).
We absolutely love the way the new Voodoo BBCOR and NVS BBCOR feel, so we are excited to see how the 2014 DeMarini CF6 performs on the baseball field. You can be sure we will have our bat review up as soon as we get our hands on one.
We have recently received several reports from people who got burned by scammers offering baseball bats and softball bats at too-good-to-be-true prices.
DO NOT BUY FROM THE FOLLOWING WEBSITES. THEY ARE CHINESE SCAMMERS WHO STEAL YOUR CREDIT CARD NUMBER.
Here are a couple of the reports we have seen from victims of this scam.
“Hello I just wanted to let you know that the company listed above is scamming people for thousands of dollars…. I myself lost $600 to these scammers, including my sons hard earned money.. disgusting.!!..after some research the company is from CHINA…and are sending out plastic tee ball bats if anything….I reported them to BBB to review, but who knows how many innocent people are being taken….hopefully somebody can stop this..! Thanks for your time… Ed”
If you have been scammed by either of these websites, or if you know of another website doing this, please comment below to warn other people. Hopefully this post will get high enough in search engines so people can see it and be warned of the fraud happening on those two websites.
Please file a Ripoff Report, and help others avoid these sites.
We received a couple of the new, 2014 DeMarini BBCOR Bats to sample and demo so we could share with you. The new Demarini NVS is balanced like no other BBCOR bat I have ever swung. The feel, and the pop off the barrel of the bat is great, better than the previous Vexxum. What this review is going to be about is the extreme balance of the new DeMarini NVS BBCOR.
As most of you know, the BBCOR standard allows for the baseball to come off of the barrel of the bat at a certain speed and not a MPH faster. Companies like DeMarini have several bats that meet this performance standard right at the limit, but that is not all there is to it. A BBCOR bat really has to be the complete package. Every part of a BBCOR bat must come together to make the best bat possible, not just “pop”. What the new, 2014 DeMarini NVS does is combine the pop and performance with the absolute lightest feeling, most balanced BBCOR bat ever conceived. I mean, it is shockingly light.
The 2014 NVS is so light and balanced that I really liked it at first. It felt good and was easy to swing. I was hitting hard line drives all over the field, with the occasional deep shot into the gap. However, you begin to realize that with the NVS, if you don’t put a charge into your swing, the bat is so light that it does not exactly do as much of the work for you as say, the 2014 Voodoo BBCOR would because of the end load it has.
Take that last sentence with a grain of salt, though. I did not notice any lack of power at all until I had taken about 70 swings in a row on the NVS BBCOR, so I was getting tired. I put down the NVS and picked up the 2014 Voodoo to get a comparison of the two, and I noticed the Voodoo hit the ball harder in my tired state because of the heavier end load, all I had to do was put the Voodoo in motion and the bat took care of the rest.
The reason this does not matter is you are never going to go up to the plate as gassed as I was. I am only making the above point to show you the difference between the two 2014 DeMarini BBCOR bats, they are designed this way for a reason. If you are a power hitter, or a guy who hits for average, the 2014 DeMarini Voodoo is an excellent bat, and definitely outperforms the 2013 Voodoo. If you are a younger player, or a guy that hits line drives, the 2014 DeMarini NVS is probably the best BBCOR bat for 2014 for you due to the light feel.
Special thanks to CheapBats.com who let us use their batting cage facility and demo bats for this BBCOR bat review.
The 2014 Louisville Slugger Z2000 Softball Bat has received durability improvements to address a small batch of softball bats that may have had production issues. Louisville Slugger will be releasing two new slowpitch softball bats in the second quarter of 2013, but the 2014 Z2000 has been the most anticipated model so far.
The 2014 Louisville Slugger Z2000 is essentially unchanged for 2014, with the exception of improvements in production to be able to produce more bats and address a small concern with a limited number of 2013 Z2000 softball bats regarding durability that did not meet Louisville Slugger’s rigid quality standards.
There are four different 2014 Z2000 softball bat versions: ASA Balanced, ASA End Loaded, USSSA Balanced, and USSSA End Loaded. Each bat uses the impressive LS-2X composite carbon fiber material, and the iST two piece connection.
2014 ASA Z2000 – The ASA version of this softball bat has an added ring in the barrel to meet the new ASA Softball ball exit speed standard. This ring is on the ASA Z2000 only, without it the Z2000 would be too hot. The ring prevents the barrel from flexing too much, which would allow for added trampoline effect, essentially this is a “rev limiter” that prevents excessive home runs. The ASA version is also approved for USSSA play, but if you play more USSSA, get the USSSA specific version below.
DeMarini made some major changes to their two best selling BBCOR bats for 2014 (See our 2014 Vexxum NVS Review). So this was a fun bat review to do because we got to swing brand new bats that are about to hit the fields. Starting with the new Voodoo minus 3 ounce has a new knob and new composite in the handle. The barrel uses the X10 alloy in the barrel like previous versions, but the ring inside the barrel is moved down closer to the taper to help balance the bat out a little more than earlier versions of the BBCOR Voodoo. The Paradox composite is stronger than the older C6 composite, and gives the bat a stiffer feel, while eliminating vibration.
First impressions of the 2014 Voodoo BBCOR the feel. The new bat is still end loaded, but not as end loaded, so more hitters will be comfortable with this bat in their hands than ever before.
There is a new design for the knob of the new Voodoo called the RCK KNOB (Really Cool Knob). They thought about what shape would be most comfortable up against your hands during a hard swing. Cone shaped is not the best word, but that is what it reminds me of. It is actually more in between a cone shape and a normal knob, but we know we like it. I expect other companies to copy this and try to make knobs a little smoother to give the batter added comfort.
There is absolutely no vibration with the 2014 Voodoo. The bat swings solid. There is enough mass in the barrel of the bat to drive the ball hard, even on weak swings at the end of batting practice, if you can get the bat around, the baseball will jump off the barrel feeling solid.
The grip feels great; not too thin, not too thick. The Voodoo is the real deal. The new composite really does make a difference where it counts. The new Voodoo feels more like a one piece bat than a half and half bat, but benefits from the half and half construction in the respect that there is no vibration, unlike many one piece bats.
I really think the 2014 Voodoo is much better than the 2013 version, and I have no doubt the the new Voodoo will be one of the best BBCOR bats for 2014.
