Birch is the one that breaks like a wafer cookie. I like balsa wood. It's light so I can swing faster, which makes up for the force otherwise lost on impact. I found this on Yahoo Answers, this may be you...and your real trade-off reason. "Balsa wood bats are cheap, but I wouldn't recommend them. The only good thing about them is, if you strike out (and hopefully that won't happen), you can just snap the bat in two like it's nothing, and crumble it into a million pieces which impresses the chicks. Of course, they'll be less impressed with the fact that you struck out, so it's a trade off."