"A Beetle May Soon Strike Out Baseball's Famous Ash Bats"

"There's a voracious little bug destroying forests across the eastern U.S. Scientists say emerald ash borers, exotic beetles imported accidentally from Asia, have killed as many as 50 million trees.

They're now threatening groves in New York's Adirondack Mountains that are used to make an iconic kind of baseball bat.

On a sweltering day, at the Rawlings plant in Dolgeville, a humble little sawmill about an hour's drive west of Albany, workers sort chunks of pale white wood veined with brown. About 40 people work here. They've hand-crafted baseball bats made from ash wood for more than a century."

Brian Mann reports for NPR's Morning Edition August 3, 2016.