Major League Baseball's Safety and Health Advisory Committee is scheduled meet in New York on Friday to discuss the routine shattering and exploding of bats during the 2008 season. For those who have condemned the use of maple wood and blamed it for the epidemic of broken bats, it might be time to rethink their position.

Brian Hillerich, the great grandson of Bud Hillerich, the founder of the company Hillerich & Bradsby, which makes the Louisville Slugger, said Major League Baseball is not likely to issue a ban of maple bats, but it is going to explore specification changes to the models of bats being used.

"We've been told that they probably won't ban maple, that they will come up with some recommendations for changing what we do now," said Hillerich, Professional Bat Production Manager for the company, which has a 60 percent share of the MLB market.

One of the remedies to reduce the number of broken bats is to change the ratio between the length and weight of a bat. According to MLB rules, bats can be no more than minus-3.5, which means the difference between the length in inches and weight in ounces cannot be greater than 3.5.

"A 34-inch, 30.5-ounce bat is waiting to be broken in half," said Hillerich.

MLB collected more than 1,700 broken bats between July and September and launched a research initiative into the breaking of bats, which was a near nightly occurrence throughout the summer. Players were dodging projectiles in the field, a fan was hit by part of a bat in the stands in Los Angeles and Pittsburgh Pirates coach Don Long was hit by a flying piece of a shattered bat.

Jim Anderson, the vice president and director of sales for MaxBat, which makes maple bats for players such as Philadelphia Phillies shortstop Jimmy Rollins and Baltimore Orioles second baseman Brian Roberts, said the model of the bat has more to do with it shattering than the wood species.

Anderson submitted a 24-page report to MLB and reported ratios of weight-to-length of the bat and barrel size were factors in breakage.

"There was too much generalization being made about maple ... ash bats break violently, too," Anderson said. "Baseball needs to look at the specs currently allowed for a solution."

Pat Courtney, MLB vice president of public relations, said in an e-mail that Friday's meeting will cover more than maple and model. The committee will explore findings by its experts on thickness of bat handles, size of barrels and grains of wood.

The committee will hear from a team of experts on wood, including Timberco Inc., which tests structural and non-structural wood products, and James A. Sherwood, a professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Massachusetts-Lowell and the Director of the Baseball Research Center.

Anderson said more players are requesting big barrel bats and those at the minus-3.5 ratio.

He said it was Nate McLouth's il3 model that broke in Pittsburgh with the barrel flying into the face of Long, who was in the dugout.

Anderson compared the il3 with the R10 model swung by David DeJesus of the Kansas City Royals. It has a minus-2 weight drop (33.5 to 31.5) and a barrel less than 2.5 inches.

"DeJesus has yet to break the first R10 he was given at the beginning of this year's spring training," Anderson said in an e-mail.

MLB reacted to the glut of broken bats by raising the financial thresholds of companies who want to be licensed to make bats for big leaguers.

Beginning in the 2009 season, the approximately 30 companies are required to have $10 million in liability insurance, up from $5 million. MLB also raised the administrative fee for being a partner to $10,000 from $5,000 to help defray the costs of research into the exploding bats and for additional quality control.