Forest Products Laboratory: Building A Durable Baseball Bat

Back in 1910, Wisconsin, home to the legendary lumberman Paul Bunyan, was at the epicenter of America’s insatiable appetite for lumber.  Much of Wisconsin’s northern forests had been cleared, and the U.S. Government established the Forest Products Laboratory at the University of Wisconsin Madison to come up ways of using the suddenly scarce resource more efficiently.  To this day, the FPL is the only federally funded wood products research center.  Given that big-league ballplayers go through  approximately 16,500 wooden baseball bats each season, it’s not surprising that Major League Baseball is one of the Forest Product Lab’s biggest clients.  Materials Product Engineer John Considine works on baseball bats for the Forest Products Laboratory, and he joins 8 O’Clock Buzz host Brian Standing, by phone.