Officials at the Sports Equipment Manufacturers Association, a trade group, said they believed that alloy bats are safe and that other changes in the game _ a spongier ball and more powerful, better-conditioned athletes _ helped explain harder-hit balls and scoring records.
12.
On West 125th Street in Harlem, the bootleg superstore, I chose from thousands of discs the only one I hadn't previously seen in the theater, " The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie . " I don't think that the pirated version was much spongier than the original, but it was definitely squarer.
