Players have been altering bats for decades in a bid to improve their grip -- adding pine-tar or some specialized grip tape, maybe shaving the handle slightly to make it thinner.

Using a strikingly different model in which wood is moved lower down the barrel after the label and shapes the end a little like a bowling pin, the torpedo bat has become baseball's latest fad.

The New York Yankees’ 20-9 win against the Milwaukee Brewers last Saturday has put the spotlight on the odd, bowling-pin-shaped “torpedo bat” that many of the team’s players were swinging.