When 13-year-old Brandon Meyer steps to the plate for his youth baseball team, he wields a $250 bat of space-age aluminum. In practice, though, young Brandon goes old school, choosing a wooden bat that helps hone his swing for when he needs it most.

"It helps you get your muscles stronger," said Meyer, 13, of Elk River. "It makes aluminum way lighter so you can just smash the baseball."

With young players who want to hit like Major Leaguers, and proposals to ban metal bats popping up around the country, wood bats have been winning new converts. Instead of settling for a $25 mass-produced ash bat, more top players are ordering more durable custom bats that cost as much as $100, often made on the same lathes and from the same maple as the bats swung in the big leagues.

Companies including MaxBat, the Brooten-based company that made Meyer's bats; Xbats of Las Vegas; Old Hickory Bat Co. of Nashville, Tenn.; and The Original Maple Bat Corp. of Ontario, Canada -- maker of SamBats --......