Baseball Bat

"This brings back some good memories."

―Nick

"That's a home run!"

―Ellis

Baseball Bat
Weapon type	Close Combat Weapon
Technical specifications
Rate of fire	0.85s per hit. 17s to kill a Tank.

The Baseball Bat is a close combat weapon, introduced in Left 4 Dead 2.

It is found in every safe room, as long as one player on the team pre-ordered the game. For those who have downloaded The Passing, the Baseball Bat is now randomly found alongside other melee weapons in all maps.

Melee weapons replace Pistols in the secondary weapon slot. Unlike Pistols, close combat weapons never need to be reloaded and cannot run out of ammo (excluding the Chainsaw). They have two main drawbacks: a limited reach and (with a few exceptions) relatively long cooldown periods. Close combat weapons cause minimal friendly fire damage to the Survivors, even on Advanced and Expert difficulty levels (the Chainsaw is an exception).

These weapons are extremely effective. All melee weapons, on all difficulties, kill Common Infected and most Special Infected in one hit, aside from the Charger (which takes two—but see point below), the Witch (which takes four), and the Tank (which takes twenty, excluding the Chainsaw). Due to their death effects, it is generally advised to melee neither the Boomer (unless there is no choice) nor the Spitter (unless it is possible to move away immediately from the resulting acid splash).

The melee weapons appear to do more damage if an Infected's head or upper body is targeted. With the correct timing it is possible to kill a Charger with one hit while it is charging, allowing a Survivor to "level" a charge without first dealing damage to the Charger and to gain the achievement "Level a Charge".

The Baseball Bat is classified as a Bludgeoning weapon, and will spew blood on your screen and may decapitate Infected.

Pros

• Good if you need a melee weapon and there are no other ones around.
• A competant bludgeoning weapon.

Cons

• Has long reset time.
• Uncommon on most levels

Achievements

	CONFEDERACY OF CRUNCHES	(30G)
	Finish a campaign using only melee weapons.

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	HEAD HONCHO	(15G)
	Decapitate 200 Infected with a melee weapon.

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	TANK BURGER	(30G)
	Kill a Tank with melee weapons.

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	BEAT THE RUSH	(15G)
	In a Survival round, get a medal only using melee weapons.

Notes

Nick holding the Baseball Bat.

• The Baseball Bat is based on a standard wooden baseball bat, obviously used in the game of baseball.
• In the first Left 4 Dead 2 trailer, the attack sound uses the same audio attack from Team Fortress 2, a metal ding sound. The sound files have since been changed to fit the wooden properties of the bat.
• The Baseball Bat was only available to players who pre-ordered Left 4 Dead 2, but it still is not needed to get the Club Dead achievement.
• The Baseball Bat is not a single weapon like the other melee weapons, the entire team can grab one.
  • The Baseball Bat is no longer always found in the starting safe rooms for those who pre-order Left 4 Dead 2 and downloaded The Passing, but they can still be found randomly in the game and in safe rooms, including the starting one. They now follow standard melee weapons rules; there is only one instance of the weapon per spawn.
• As long as at least one player is signed in to a profile that downloaded The Passing DLC, and is playing on a system with it present, the Baseball Bat will be available to all players for the duration of that game.
• Early, the Baseball Bat was supposed to be made of metal, explaining its sound in the first trailer. Its old design can be seen in the Left 4 Dead 2 Strategy Guide.
• When The Passing was released, if the Bat was ported over to another Xbox 360 console via Memory Unit, it would appear on the console it was ported to, even if the owner of that console hadn't pre-ordered the game. Prior to The Passing update, it would claim the file was corrupt. This exploit may or may not still work.

External Links

• PAX 09: Baseball Bat