Homeruns started flying in 1977, the first year the Nokona Bratt Bat was introduced to the major leagues. Two of the bats were sent to each team in April of that year and the homeruns were flying by June. Immediately the entire baseball scene started claiming the ball was live, but the homeruns would have been flying in April if they were using a live ball. Bratts refrained from sending their bats to the teams in 1978 only to see the homerun output go down again.Where did the live ball go? The next approach was to start sending Nokona Bratt Bats to only the A.L. and by 1982 they had increased their homerun output by 40 %. The N. L. homerun output remained as it was before 1977.

 

Bratts started sending Nokona Bratt Bats to both leagues in 1983. By 1986, the A. L. had increased their homerun output by 71 % and the N.L. by 30 % over their 1976 output. During spring training in l987 they sent 6 bats to every major league team along with our powerful bat speed test results in an effort to further improve the homerun output.Each league broke their all time homerun records in 1987.

 

The A.L. increased their homerun output to 95 % over 1976 and the N.L. to 53 % over 1976. We had to increase the homerun output for the Red Sox and Orioles during the last half of the 1988 season to prove the ball wasn't dead in 1988, and we did just that.  (It took us the next 12 years to get the N. L. to hit as many homeruns as the A.L. and again break the all time major league homerun record in 2000.(In fact they hit more homeruns per team than the A. L. in 2001, which was quite an accomplishment without the use of a designated hitter.(It's amazing what increased bat speed can produce, more HR's and higher BA's.