Manfred says torpedo bats are ’good for baseball’

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Torpedo bats are all the rage this season, and Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred believes all that chatter is positive for the sport.

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“They’re absolutely good for baseball,” Manfred said in a Q&A published by The New York Times on Sunday. “I believe that issues like the torpedo bat and the debate around it demonstrate the fact that baseball still occupies a unique place in our culture, because people get into a complete frenzy over something that’s really nothing at the end of the day.”

The interview covered multiple topics and included Manfred praising the testing of robot umpires during spring training. He said he’d like to see their use expanded to the regular season soon.

“I hope that we bring it to the big leagues in short order,” Manfred said. “It won’t be in 2025. It’d be in 2026.”

Torpedo bats drew attention recently when the New York Yankees hit a team-record nine homers in one game. With several players using a strikingly different model in which wood is moved lower down the barrel toward the label, shaping the end a little like a bowling pin, the bat has become baseball’s latest fad.

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