successful but did place the barrel 12 of the bat 10 in the vicinity of the ball accordingly the batter will be signaled to adjust his her swing if knob 18 is provided then feedback similar to handle 14 will be produced if it is used to strike a ball however the resulting sound will differ depending on the construction of the knob 18 it should be noted that knob 18 provides bat 10 with an outwardly stepped intermediate cross sectional area at a distal end of the inwardly tapered covering 24 of barrel 12 such a profile is preferred to a distal end that continues to taper inwardly because the generally opposing taper angles cause a struck ball to travel in different directions thereby providing clearly distinct visual feedback for example a ball struck with covering 24 will tend to be hit to the u201c opposite field u201d i e in the direction that the batter 39 s body is facing whereas a ball struck with knob 18 will tend to be u201c pulled u201d i e it will travel in the direction that the bat is being swung feedback of this nature informs the batter that his her swing was not successful and did not place the barrel 12 or sweet spot 28 of the bat 10 in the vicinity of the ball accordingly the batter will be signaled to adjust his her swing in order to be successful another possible result is that the ball can be struck by the barrel 12 at a location away.