- Associated Press - Monday, June 13, 2011

MADISON, WIS. (AP) - Major League Baseball has been trying to reduce the number of broken bats and the injuries that can come with them.

The league has an expert partner, too: After all, who knows wood better than the U.S. Forest Service?

The partnership seems to be working: Since the broken-bat issue reached its peak in the middle of the 2008 season, Forest Service researcher Dave Kretschmann says he has tracked an approximately 50 percent reduction in dangerous multiple-piece fractures.

Kretschmann says the main issue is getting batmakers to make sure the grain of the wood remains as close to perfectly straight as possible during the manufacturing process.

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