Berg: Q&A with Grady Phelan, bat inventor

Angled-knobs sags pressure. (Brian. Knobs. Really?)

When I walked into the visitors’ clubhouse on Saturday, Ike Davis and Josh Thole were examining one of Thole’s new angled-knob bats. Thole told me it was designed to protect against hamate-bone injuries, and I pointed out that Thole choked up anyway and was an odd choice to be debuting the new bat design.

During warmups the next day, several Mets passed one of the bats around, fascinated both by the oddly shaped knob and the bat’s finish.

I snapped a picture of it a few hours before Mike Hessman used it on his pinch-hit double on Sunday, becoming the first Major League player to do so. The inventor of the angled knob, Grady Phelan, made his way here and was willing to answer a few questions about how the idea came about and how the bat works.

Grady Phelan:...So in fact, the ergonomics of the knob reduces the pressure to the base hand allowing a more natural and powerful swing to occur. Standard knobs cause what I call “The Speed Bump Effect”, at the point of contact with the ball the batter rolls his hands over the knob –- it’s this pressure point that causes broken hamate bones, thrown bats and weak swings.

I believe batters have become accustomed the negative forces of the knob in their base hand and their natural swing suffers because of it.