The Medusa minus-12 is perhaps the first bat to take the traditional bottle bat design and apply cutting-edge bat technology, creating a high-performance bat for the smallest, youngest and most novice of fast pitch players.
The Medusa uses DeMarini’s “Half & Half” technology, blending two distinct pieces - an aluminum barrel with a composite handle - fused together at the top of the taper. By creating the bat in two pieces, DeMarini is able to use different formulas, materials and processes that allow for the best characteristics for each piece in that bat.
The bottle bat design allows for the most hitting surface possible in a fast pitch bat. It also allows for a lighter bat as the barrel wall is thinner than the taper wall, and the Medusa has practically no taper.
The Medusa employs a singlewall DX-1 Alloy barrel. This exclusive alloy allows DeMarini bat makers to mold a thin wall to maintain a lightweight feel without sacrificing durability. The longer, lighter aluminum barrel promises players maximum leverage and plate coverage.
The Flex Tuned composite handle helps lengthen the sweet spot by eliminating sting and speeding the barrel through the hitting zone. The handle also flexes before and after impact, effectively increasing swing speed with no additional effort. The Medusa’s handle minimizes vibration to give players a smooth connection and follow through.
It is available in 31”/19 ounce, 32”/20, 33”/21 and 34”/22. It is dark green and black with silver graphics.
We hit the 31”/19 model.
With the Medusa, someone has finally designed a high-performance bottle bat. Bat technology has always been aimed at the highest-end models and innovations such as double walls and composite technology are usually too heavy or too expensive for girls playing in the 10U and 12U leagues.
Smaller and younger girls tend to use bottle bats – those with short handles, short tapers and long barrels. The idea is to put as much hitting area in the hitting zone as making contact is more important than hitting the ball hard or far- so bottle bats usually have been nothing more than swaged aluminum tubes, usually made of alloys a few generations behind the top of the line.
The Medusa changes that.
“It’s actually a pretty wonderful bat,” said one 10-year-old tester. “I think it is amazing that it is a minus-12; it is the longest bat I have ever used. The way I hit has improved. There’s a difference in how far it goes.”
The difference is the single wall barrel is made of DeMarini’s top-of-the-line DX-1 alloy. The walls are thin so balls hit in the middle of the barrel actually benefit from trampoline effect. The composite handle adds to the performance. It adds flex during and after the swing and it allows for a bigger margin of error on balls hit off the center of the barrel than bottle bats with stiff aluminum handles do. But with the average swing speed of a 10-year-old not being so great, the biggest advantage the composite handle provides is the elimination of all sting at contact. The girls who hit this bat may have started with tentative swings, but after learning that they were not going to hurt their hands, even the weakest hitters got the confidence to swing hard and hit the ball farther than usual.
This bat likely does not have the pop of a composite bat nor of a doublewall. DeMarini’s Evo Faspitch and F2 Fastpitch are both considered better bats with more pop. But they also have much higher price tags and much heavier weights. For a girl who is not yet comfortable swinging a minus-10 bat or can’t handle the smallest top-of-the-line bats (which rarely come smaller than 32 inches), the Medusa is about the most advanced fast pitch bat you can get.
Like any bottle bat, the player will likely stop using it once they become a good enough hitter to use a traditional taper bat and strong enough to swing a 33 or 34 multi-wall or composite. But it definitely dominates the niche it was designed to fill.
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