Ball bats with reduced durability regions for deterring alteration

Abstract

A ball bat includes a barrel wall with a composite laminate structure that includes an outwardly facing skin, an inwardly facing skin, a stack of composite laminate plies positioned between the outwardly facing skin and the inwardly facing skin, and a discontinuity in the stack forming a gap along a longitudinal axis of the bat. A rigid or semi-rigid appliance may be positioned in the gap. The appliance may be a ring element, which may have a cross-section that traverses the composite laminate plies in the stack in a direction that is perpendicular or oblique to the longitudinal axis of the bat. The cross-section of the ring element may be triangular. A second ring element may be positioned in the barrel wall. The second ring element may be connected to the other ring element with an adhesive bond or a connecting element.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.