In this article,

 

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news?slug=stic...v=tsn&type=lgns

 

Todd Jones says:

 

Now that I've told you how to scuff, the question becomes: How much can players get away with in their own clubhouses? It's funny; pine tar is no big deal to players. Everybody uses pine tar. Catchers put in on their shinguards. Infielders put it in the pockets of their gloves so the ball will stick in there. It's almost a basic part of the game. Sandpaper and Vaseline, however, are looked at as cheating. They give pitchers too much of an advantage.

For hitters, boning bats in the bathroom is not considered cheating. Corking, however, is. Guys bone their bats in broad daylight. When a guy corks, he does it in private. If you cork and word gets out, it's bad news. You're a marked man.

 

What does he mean by boning bats? I've never heard of it.

 

Knowing some of you guys here, I'm almost afraid to ask

For hitters, boning bats in the bathroom is not considered cheating. Corking, however, is. Guys bone their bats in broad daylight. When a guy corks, he does it in private. If you cork and word gets out, it's bad news. You're a marked man.

 

I'm not sure if he's trying to add sexual innuendo into the article, but after that paragraph my mind is in the gutter as usual. Guys "corking their bats" in private huh? Guys boning their bats also, I had always wondered what the hole at the top of the bat was for...

 

If I had a guess, I would guess boning their bats means that they are compressing the bats to make them as hard as possible, just a guess though.

it means whatever you want it to mean

Rubbing your bat against a bone to supposedly make it stronger, no?

I used to bone my bat all the time, it's perfectly legal and works like a charm. All you do is locate a femur bone from a cow and then rub it up and down your bat. This process fills the poors on the bat thus making it harder, anytime you can make your bat harder you're going to hit the ball with more force.

 

I know what I said sounds extremely dirty. I'm sure most of you children were giggling through the whole damn thing.

Yeah, we used to do it on hard objects. You just rub the bat against it until it gets all smooth, it compresses the outside part of the bat and makes it harder.

Just for the record, I don't think many players bone their bats any more. What the bat companies do now is "double dip" the bats. That is, they dip them in lacquer once, let them dry, and dip then again before they get shipped. This process accomplishes the same effect as "boning."

 

"Boning", "double dipping"... I fear where else this discussion could go.