Patent ID: 8852036

Claim:
A baseball or softball bat including a batting portion formed of wood into a cylindrical shape, and a bat main body made of a fiber-reinforced plastic, a part of the bat main body being inserted in the batting portion from an open end of the batting portion, and the rest of the bat main body being exposed from the batting portion, the baseball or softball bat comprising: a suppressing member arranged on an outer circumference of the bat main body, wherein the suppressing member prevents change of orientation of fibers in the fiber-reinforced plastic; wherein the suppressing member is positioned so as to contact a step formed between the outer circumference of the bat main body and an outer circumference of the batting portion at the open end of the batting portion, wherein the bat main body includes: a batting core portion having a constant outer diameter in a longitudinal direction of the bat main body; a grip portion having a constant outer diameter in the longitudinal direction of the bat main body, the outer diameter of the grip portion being smaller than that of the batting core portion; and a tapered portion extending between the batting core portion and the grip portion, and having an outer diameter that decreases from the batting core portion toward the grip portion, wherein outer circumferential surfaces of the batting core portion, the tapered portion, and the grip portion are continuous and form a smooth surface and wherein the suppressing member is arranged on the outer circumference of the batting core portion in a vicinity of the tapered portion of the bat main body, and wherein the radial thickness of the suppressing member decreases as the distance from the batting portion is increased.