'Revolutionary' or just 'clever innovation'? MLB debates torpedo bat impact

"Torpedo" talk filled baseball airwaves Monday with managers, players and physicists wanting to know more about the long-ball-launching rods that were all the buzz of opening week.

"Torpedo" talk filled baseball airwaves Monday with managers, players and physicists wanting to know more about the long-ball-launching rods that were all the buzz of opening week.

The New York Yankees swept the Milwaukee Brewers to open the 2025 season, but it was the Bronx Bombers' use of unconventionally shaped bats — and eye-popping 15 home runs — that caught baseball's attention.

Philadelphia Phillies manager Rob Thomson, a longtime Yankees coach, said he'd never heard of the bats until the middle of last week.

"I wasn't even sure if it was a thing or not, if it was real. But I guess it is real," Thomson told reporters ahead of his team's home opener in Philadelphia on Monday. "So we're looking into it."

While the bats looked unusual, they were perfectly legal, the Yankees and MLB said.