Doctors once studied whether bat-related injuries spiked in the wake of bat giveaway day at Yankee Stadium

George Carlin -- at least I think it was George Carlin -- had an old bit that, as a tangent, talked about violence around a baseball park, with stinger to it in which he said “and hopefully it’s not bat day!” Ever since I heard that many years ago I have always thought about people beating the heck out of each other with bats every time I hear about a team giving away bats.

I’m not the only one, apparently. Enough doctors wondered about that at one point 20 years ago or so that a study was commissioned about it. The upshot of the study from the research abstract at the National Institutes of Health, which was released back in 1994 based on a study of bat day in 1990:

The distribution of 25,000 wooden baseball bats to attendees at Yankee Stadium did not increase the incidence of bat-related trauma in the Bronx and northern Manhattan. There was a positive correlation between daily temperature and the incidence of bat injury. The informal but common impressions of emergency clinicians about the cause-and-effect relationship between Bat Day and bat trauma were unfounded.

So, bat day is not a factor in people hitting other people with bats but heat is. Just another argument for domed stadiums.

(thanks to Jeremy Fox for the heads up on this oldie but goodie)