MIT physicist Aaron Leanhardt has been credited with creating the torpedo bats. Leanhardt previously served as a hitting analyst with the Yankees before he joined the Miami Marlins as a field coordinator in the offseason.

That brought their home-run total to 17 on the season, which Bryan Hoch of MLB.com noted is an all-time record for the first four games of a single campaign. The previous record was set in 2006 when the Detroit Tigers hit 16. This comes after the Bronx Bombers already tied the MLB record with 15 home runs through the first three games of a season.

It makes sense, then, that the talk around Major League Baseball after Opening Weekend concerned not a player or a team, a play or a result, but a piece of lumber: the torpedo bat. After speaking on Monday with various front-office personnel,

While baseball can sometimes be on the sporting back burner, torpedo bats have captured everyone's attention. What's going on.

The Yankees just clobbered a MLB record 15 home runs in their first three games thanks in part to a new style of bat developed by a 48-year-old physicist.