Next up to be outlawed: vampire bats and insectivorous bats, according to the Department Of Thumb-Twiddling.

Shouldn't that be the Fuzzy Budget Five?
Nah, your way sounds better.
Okay, ready for another perfect band name for the Portland City Council?
"The Guesstimates."

This could be fun. "If the Portland City Council were a rock band, its name would be..."

So many possibilities:

Potter's Feel

Randy and the Four Alarms

Stench...

U5

The link came up empty. However, you can bet your sweet... that somewhere in the guise of saving man-kind a new tax will be in the offering. Again from " Cool Hand Luke" " Boss, I wish you wouldn't be so good to me"!

A ball being hit by a metal bat doesn't make a resounding crack, but a ping. Banning metal bats would be a step in the right direction in restoring the game of baseball to the way God meant it to be played: on grass, during the day, with no designated hitter and with real wood bats.

Oh, I don't think so, Gil. I caught a metal bat once, right between the legs. It sure felt like a resounding crack to me.

he steps into a nearby phone booth and out steps..... super nanny randy leonard... save us randy save us from aluminum bats, fur coats, spray paint, and the evil of owning money. i fall on my knees nightly and thank the gods above for our city council and there infinate wisdom to save me from myself.. thank god i dont ever have to think for myself... thank you super nanny thank you.

"Oh Great Hose Jockey, thy hast bestowed thy countenance and ugli-assed concrete boxes upon thy Pearl, tho hast give succor and nurtured the morons of the Bicycle Transit Authority, obstructing the free movement of those actually employed, tho hast pissed away $50 million on a toy has must stop when the wind blows..."

The Demarini aluminum bat was invented in Portland, so it would be a shame if they banned them here.

Notably, Portland's Finest are doing foot patrols around Pioneer Courthouse Square enforcing the tobacco ban. A good start...Now if they will enforce the ban on heroin, meth, cocaine, & marijuana, it might be safe to walk the Park Blocks at night, or wait for a bus.

Oh good Lord above this is ridiculous. A safety issue? Well, if that's the case, you'd think they'd have reams of data to support how wooden bats are so much safer than aluminum. You know, something like, "A ball hit from an aluminum bat will hit the pitcher's melon in 0.58 seconds, while a ball hit from a wooden bat takes a leisurely 0.7 seconds." Or maybe the REAL safety benefit is when a wooden bat breaks and half of it flies into the stands, knocking beer out of spectators' hands, thereby reducing the incidents of drunk driving.

Yeah yeah yeah, but look how much better the city is since Vera's ban on "snout houses".

Let's not forget to watch the Multnomah County Board of Commissioners. They're still trying to figure out how to ban transfats inside the county -- based on New York's action. So maybe they'll be the 'bat-boys' -- now that there are more guys than gals on the BCC.

When metal bats are outlawed....

I think we've identified a significant Second Amendment issue here!

"Oh good Lord above this is ridiculous. A safety issue?"

I'm with Gil -- who is actually pretty macho in his marshall arts program for kids -- on the metal bat thang. (I'll never forget the first time my petite 6-year-old daughter broke a board in Gil's class with her foot, which she literally had to kick over her own head to reach. She's the baby in the family but she got a lot more respect from everybody after that).

Actually a whole bunch of little leaguers have been killed and maimed by these bats -- some are being developed with pressurized mechanisms inside to make the ball go even faster.

Frankly, all you guys can swing at each other any way you want -- I don't give a damn if the major leagues use jackhammers on the field. But we're talking about kids, not gr'ups, here. Which last I checked, caring for the kids is what nannies are SUPPOSED to be for. God forbid governments should give a damn about the health and safety of kids.

I know I've seen dribs and drabs of stories about the boys -- always boys -- being killed on the field, or declared brain dead, or having their skulls pieced back together with metal pins. It seems like I've read a dozen stories like that over the past two years. One kid in New York -- was it in New York? -- got clocked in the chest last year by a ball hit by an aluminum bat and had a heart attack on the field, now he's brain damaged for life at the age of 11. The damn ball moves so fast the kids can't get out of the way.

I really believe that male humans are oppressed, and this is a good example of that. Boys have to be tough, men have to be able to "slug it out," or they're not really men. If it were a question of schoolgirls being killed by rapidly-advancing sports equipment technology, someone would step in and at least take a second look. At least people would discuss it reasonably as if we really gave a shit about kids, in general.

But not boys.......worry about brain injuries from metal bats? That's too "nanny state," it's for "girly men."

I bet none of the guys who weighed in on the topic here has a kid in little league nor has ever seen what goes on with them. Just a buncha armchair chest-beating about "nannies."

Except Gil. It's good to know that SOME GUYS are actually SPENDING TIME WITH THE KIDS, and PAYING ATTENTION.

Their going in the wrong direction again. I've always said, "Guns don't kill, it's the bullets you have to worry about." Now they are focusing on the bats when it should be their "balls"!

Wrong, they should ban pitchers.

I commented primarily as a baseball purist, but this may be an instance in which tradition coincides with good sense. I've been playing slow pitch softball for about 30 years and remember using mostly wood bats. I was a singles hitter at that time. Then came the metal bats and I started pulling the ball and hitting home runs. Metal bats connecting with hard baseballs could easily be a hazard to kids.