HELENA, Mont. – Fighting off a Helena Senators' fifth-inning rally, pitcher Brandon Patch checked the runner on first base. The 18-year-old Miles City Mavericks' southpaw then went into his windup, delivering what looked sure to be another strike.
Instead, the Senators' hitter connected squarely, smacking the baseball so hard that it was nearly impossible to follow — until it ricocheted off Patch's head. The ball eventually fell behind first base after traveling, by some accounts, as high as 50 feet in the air.
Patch, pitching in what was to be one of his final games with his American Legion team, collapsed on the mound. He managed to speak briefly to his father and coaches, and to some of the teammates from the eastern Montana town of Miles City, who had rushed to help him. Minutes later, Patch went into convulsions as a horrified crowd watched on from the bleachers.
Within hours, Patch had died from head injuries suffered while playing the game he had loved since he'd been a small child.
"It was just so quick. Everything happened so fast," Mavericks' first baseman Kevin Roberts recalled more than six years later in a courtroom, where the bat's manufacturer is being sued by Patch's mother for allegedly producing an unreasonably dangerous product.
At issue in the trial that is expected to last at least until early next week is whether anyone could have known the danger that could come from using an aluminum baseball bat, and whether the manufacturer should be held liable for Patch's death.
"There is absolutely no warning anywhere ... that this bat can create a situation where a pitcher is defenseless," said Joe White, the Patchs' attorney.
Metal bats came into vogue in amateur sports in the 1970s. More recently, however, they have come under increased scrutiny and criticism as injuries from fast-moving balls hit by the lightweight bats have mounted.
What makes aluminum bats different from their wooden counterparts is that the weight is distributed more equally in the metal ones, making it easier to swing faster and harder. They're also generally shaped to have larger sweet spots, the area that produces hard-hit balls.
In 2002, the U.S. Consumer Safety Product Commission ruled that there was inconclusive data to support a ban on metal bats in youth and high school baseball games. Its study found that from 1991 to 2001, there were 17 deaths nationwide due to batted balls. Of those, eight were from metal bats, two from wood and another seven were of unknown origin.
But Patch's death in 2003 cast new light on the issue when his team refused to use metal bats or play American Legion games against those who did.
Since 2007, high school teams in North Dakota and New York City have also played only with wooden bats. States including Montana and Pennsylvania, home to the Little League World Series, have also considered state laws banning metal bats since Patch's death, although none has passed.
Attorneys for Hillerich & Bradsby, manufacturers of the Louisville Slugger bat used to hit Patch's fateful pitch, contend that accidents are bound to happen in baseball games and there's nothing inherently unsafe about aluminum baseball bats.
"This bat did what was expected of it. There's no showing it did anything different," attorney Rob Sterup told Judge Kathy Seeley on Wednesday in an unsuccessful effort to get the case dismissed.
It will now be up to a jury to decide whether the company is at fault and whether to award the Patch family any damages. The complaint the Patch family filed did not seek a specified amount, although lawyers have said the case isn't about money.
The Patch family has gone on a nationwide crusade to eliminate the use of aluminum bats and their name is well known in baseball circles.
In 2004, the family was highlighted in an ESPN program about the safety of metal bats in which they spoke about Brandon's death. The family and a spokesman for Louisville Slugger declined to talk with The Associated Press while the trial is under way.
Mike May, spokesman for the Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association's Don't Take My Bat Away Program, said while Patch's death is tragic and he respects what mother Debbie Patch is trying to do, the exact same thing likely would have occurred if a wooden bat had been used when the ball hit the sweet spot.

"In the case of Brandon Patch, it was an accident that we'll never be able to fully understand and hopefully we'll never have to go through it again," May said. "There's nothing more than we'd like to do than see Brandon Patch play today."

WASHINGTON – A Goldman Sachs executive has been named the first chief operating officer of the Securities and Exchange Commission's enforcement division.
The market watchdog agency said Friday that Adam Storch, vice president in Goldman Sachs' Business Intelligence Group, is assuming the new position of managing executive of the SEC division.
The move came as the SEC has been revamping its enforcement efforts following the agency's failure to uncover Bernard Madoff's massive fraud scheme for nearly two decades despite numerous red flags.
Storch, who will be responsible for project management and operations, will report to SEC Enforcement Director Robert Khuzami.
Along with the enforcement division's deputy director, Storch also will supervise the SEC's Office of Market Intelligence, with an eye to improving the monitoring, collection and analysis of the hundreds of thousands of tips and complaints the agency receives annually.
Before joining Goldman Sachs, Storch was a senior consultant at accounting firm Deloitte & Touche. He is a certified public accountant and certified fraud examiner, and has an MBA from New York University and bachelors of science in business administration from the State University of New York in Buffalo.
Storch has a strong background in technology systems and project management, Khuzami said in a statement. "He will help to make us more efficient and nimble, and permit us to put more of our investigators on the front lines to detect and stop fraud," Khuzami said.
Khuzami, a former federal prosecutor who came to the SEC in March from Wall Street investment firm Deutsche Bank, says he has undertaken the most extensive restructuring of the enforcement division in at least 30 years.
In addition, SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro ended a policy requiring agency enforcement attorneys to get approval from the SEC commissioners before negotiating fines and penalties with companies accused of violations.
The SEC inspector general recently recommended a new system for handling tips and complaints to prevent another breakdown like the one that allowed Madoff's Ponzi scheme to flourish for 16 years.
The proposals from SEC Inspector General David Kotz for the enforcement and inspections operations also include making it easier for junior-level enforcement attorneys to bring their concerns to top managers.
In a report issued in August, Kotz detailed how the SEC bungled five investigations of Madoff's business between June 1992 and last December, when the financier confessed the scheme to his sons. He found that enforcement staff lacked adequate guidance on how to properly analyze complaints, and therefore failed to thoroughly review a complaint on Madoff brought to them in 2001 by private fraud investigator Harry Markopolos.
Madoff, who pleaded guilty in March, is serving a 150-year sentence in federal prison in North Carolina for what could be the biggest Ponzi scheme in history. It destroyed thousands of people's life savings, wrecked charities and gave the financial system another big jolt.

BEIJING (AFP) –
Authorities in central China plan to move 15,000 residents away from smelting plants in the area after nearly 1,000 children tested positive for lead poisoning, state media said on Friday.

Zhao Suping, mayor of Jiyuan city in Henan province, said the mass relocation would cost one billion yuan (146 million dollars), the official Xinhua news agency reported.

Zhao said 70 percent of the cost would be borne by the local government and the smelters responsible for the lead poisoning, while local residents would foot the rest of the bill, according to Xinhua.

State press reported Tuesday that health authorities in Jiyuan found that 968 children had excessive levels of lead in their blood after tests on more than 2,700 kids under the age of 14.

The scandal was just the latest in a string of recent lead poisoning incidents around China that have exposed the dark side of the country's industrial boom of recent decades.

Excessive levels of lead are considered hazardous, particularly to children, who can experience stunted growth and even mental retardation.

Xinhua called Jiyuan the country's biggest lead-smelting centre.

The report said the relocation site for the affected residents was still being determined.

The Jiyuan government suspended production at 32 of the 35 electrolytic lead plants in the area, it added.

Deluxe Gate Lokk-Latch

Five foot high fences (over which many people can see and talk) are increasingly being superseded by six-foot fences giving the impression of complete privacy.

Privacy fencing is the use of fences to protect privacy, usually by preventing outsiders from seeing onto a property. There are cultural differences with regards to the use of fences around properties. For instance, it is common in European countries to put a fence around the entire border of one's property, including the front border, with a gate to obtain access to the property. However, in many parts of North America, fences are commonly used only on the borders between properties that back onto each other (on the side away from the street) and along the sides of properties up to the point where the house begins. Such fences are often made of chainlink and do not prevent people from seeing into neighboring yards. They may be intended to mark property lines or to keep dogs in, or out of, yards. The front yards in such neighborhoods are often open to the street.