The California State Senate is considering a bill that would ban the use of aluminum baseball bats in high school athletics in the wake of a serious brain injury suffered by a high school pitcher last March.

Gunnar Sandberg, a 16-year-old pitcher at Marin Catholic High School, was critically injured after being hit by a line drive in March. He spent three weeks in a coma with a life-threatening brain injury and required surgery to remove part of his skull to relive pressure on his brain.

Remarkably, he has made great strides since the injury, recently making an appearance on the mound at Oakland Coliseum to throw out the ceremonial first pitch of a game between the A's and the Giants.

The incident has reignited a debate about the use of aluminum or composite baseball bats that has been going on for more than a decade. Proponents of the ban on aluminum bats point to incidents like Gunnar Sandberg's ordeal to argue that the bats make an already dangerous activity, more dangerous.