Rye’s Jarden Corp Batted Around
According to BusinessWeek.com, a Mets fan is going after Rye's Jarden Corp for manufacturing bats via it Rawlings subsidiary claiming the bats are dangerous and shatter easily:
"A New York Mets fan's lawsuit over a broken bat that flew into his face was thrown out Wednesday, with a judge rejecting his argument that the team and Major League Baseball should have done more to safeguard spectators from break-prone maple bats.
James G. Falzon's lawsuit follows years of discussion of the safety of increasingly popular maple bats, which have been shown to break apart more readily than traditional ash bats…
Falzon was in a box seat along the third-base line, watching a fly ball soar, when the barrel of a broken maple bat smashed into him during an August 2007 game against the Atlanta Braves at Shea Stadium, according to his suit….
Falzon's other lawsuit accuses Rawlings-brand bat maker the Jarden Corp. of producing an "inherently dangerous" bat. A lawyer for Rye, N.Y.-based Jarden declined to comment.
Baseball bats have traditionally been made from ash trees, but maple bats have gained ground in recent years, particularly after Barry Bonds used them to break Mark McGwire's single-season home run record in 2001 and Hank Aaron's career home run record in 2007.
But as maple bats have proliferated, so have concerns about their safety. An MLB committee found in 2008 that maple bats were three times as likely to break in multiple places as ash bats."
