STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — Aluminum bats would be banned from youth baseball games under a proposal by a state lawmaker who contends such a move would make the sport safer.

The idea from Rep. Mike Carroll comes a month after the New York City Council passed similar legislation that banned metal bats in high school games. New Jersey legislators are considering a similar bill.

Protecting kids from injury is the top priority, said Carroll, who represents Luzerne and Monroe counties and is an assistant coach on his son’s Little League team.

Echoing proponents from other states, Carroll said balls batted off aluminum bats travel with greater speed and force than those struck by wood bats and cited a limited study in 2002 from Brown University on bat performance.

“My personal experience drives me farther than any other study,” Carroll said. “In the end, it’s a question of safety. ... These kids are very young.”

Carroll is seeking co-sponsors for his proposal and hopes to introduce it in the House later this week. Under the bill, players would be fined $25 and organizers $50 for using non-wood bats.

Many supporters cite two accidents in calling for a ban, including the death of 18-year-old Brandon Patch, who was struck in the temple by a baseball off of an aluminum bat in an American Legion game for Miles City, Mont., in 2003.

A 12-year-old boy in New Jersey went into cardiac arrest last summer after a line drive off a metal bat struck him in the chest in the millisecond between his heartbeats. He returned home from the hospital in February.

Those instances are tragic, but rare, said Little League Baseball president Stephen Keener, who opposes blanket bans on metal bats. Little League reached agreement with major metal bat manufacturers more than 10 years ago that essentially said that metal bats could not outperform wood bats.

The number of injuries by batted balls to pitchers — the closest fielder in front of the batter’s box — has decreased from 145 in 1992 to roughly 30 per year now, Keener said.

“We still allow our leagues to use wood. There just shouldn’t be a law that mandates to use it,” Keener said.

The Brown study covered bats used in high school and colleges, not Little League.

Keener said the study was outdated and looked at bats before high school scholastic officials instituted rules that mandated that aluminum bats could not hit the ball harder than top-of-the-line wood bats.

In 2005, an American Legion Baseball study found no substantial scientific proof to support the argument that wooden bats are safer than metal bats.

Metal bats typically are lighter than wood bats of the same length, allowing a hitter to swing the bat faster. Metal bats also usually have a larger “sweet spot” on which hitters can make ideal contact.

That allows more kids to have more fun and have a better chance of hitting the ball, said Ari Fleischer, a spokesman for a coalition of sporting goods companies and youth baseball organizations. The group, called Don’t Take My Bat Away, has asked a federal court to overturn New York’s law.

“Once kids drop to wood, the fear is kids will hit .200, .225 and strike out more and kids will drop out of baseball,” said Fleischer, former press secretary for the Bush administration and a baseball fan. “There is a serious threat to the long-term future of the game without there being safety advantages of using just wood.”