Just when you thought the game of baseball was headed back to it’s rich cultural roots — like sunflower seed spitting, body part scratching, and game plans not printed on a spread sheet, along comes another propeller head with another computer print out that, mercifully, no one had ever before considered.

This one has to do with the sports’ primary weapon of mass destruction, the bat.

Now here you have a rather simple device designed to periodically catch up with a thrown object and on occasion sent back in the direction from which it came — sometimes even reaching the outer limits where it could not be caught by anyone wearing a uniform.

Striking the hurled object with the aforementioned weapon was more often a failure than a success. See #246 in the baseball book of cliches: “How can you hit a round ball with a round bat, squarely?”

Bat design was pretty much the same for Babe Ruth as it is for Matt Chapman. When it comes to innovation, the baseball bat finished a distant third to fire and the wheel. As defined by baseball rules, the bat is a smooth round stick, no more than 2.6” in diameter and 42” in length.

“Just hit it on the sweet spot,” every little league coach who ever lived would say. My sweet spot was sour. My major league baseball career came to a crashing halt the first time a ball was thrown at any speed in excess of 30 miles an hour and not in a straight line.

My life would have been different had the torpedo bat not been invented when I’m closer to a pine box than the batter’s box.

The torpedo bat made big news this week when the New York Yankees used it and just happened to hit nine home runs that day. Mind you, three of those dingers came off the bat of Aaron Judge who is strong enough to hit a ball out of the park with a toothpick. By the way, he didn’t use the torpedo bat.

What the physicist who invented the torpedo bat did, was to move the sweet spot down on the bat where most balls are struck. The inventor, Aaron Leanhardt, used to work for the Yankees. He’s now with the Marlins. Ironically, the bat doesn’t work as well with the Marlins as it did with the Yankees.

I like the idea.

But then, I also liked Cabbage Patch dolls and the pet rock.

Ladies and gentlemen … your juggernaut Giants!

I really was only kidding about the Dodgers being 162-0, but I’m confident they’ll lose at least one sometime before the All-Star break.

All of that said, your Giants are on a pace to finish with a record of 161-1, just a game behind the Dodgers.

I know I mentioned it in this weekly yarn back when I was in Arizona for Spring Training, but there is a certain “it” about this team. I don’t have any delusions that the Giants will be playing at the end of October, but its best-case scenario is what’s happening right now. As a fan you truly believe the Giants could win every game they play.

Buster Posey’s fingerprints are all over this team. There is a collection of grown ups in the clubhouse. Bob Melvin is free to manage as he sees it. There’s a collective joy that’s palpable. I’m guessing even the garlic fries won’t be soggy this year.

I’m still hating the vapid and retread “Nothing Like It” theme that’s been forced on this year’s Giants, but I’ll borrow a theme from the past if I may: “You Gotta Like These Guys.”

Try ’em — you might agree.

Will the real No. 1 please stand up? OK — everybody sit down.

March Madness has gotten so big it’s outlasted March.

The men’s and women’s finals of the NCAA basketball tournament take place this weekend — finishing on Monday, and somehow it’s exactly the way the seeding poobahs envisioned it.

Eight teams — four men’s and four women’s remain to fight it out for the national championship. Seven of the eight were seeded No. 1 by the committee. The one No. 2 could be the best of all of them.

The competition committee takes everything into effect when making their seedings. They look at records against top level competition, overall record, road wins against good teams, and recent form. Then they throw it all in the shredder and find the teams with the biggest payroll. And there you have your No. 1 seeds.

There is an intangible in the process. The difference between a No. 1 seed and a No. 3 seed is coaching. The eight teams left to play this weekend are all well tutored by coaches who understand both x’s and o’s and dollars and cents. They get their players’ attention the old fashioned way: They buy it.

Getting a buy “in” is more difficult. But all eight of the remaining coaches have managed to do that. And that’s why I’ll be watching both Final Four’s this weekend.

The game’s changed. Some players this weekend will have to take a pay cut to turn pro. Most can afford to buy the bus that delivers them to the arena. Almost all work on building a brand as much as working on a jump shot. And yet, for this weekend only, the mark of a champion — the snipping of a net cord with a scissors — usurps the money, the cars, the status, and the individual rewards.

CBS has it right. “One shining moment,” that puts everything but the sheer joy of winning on the back burner — for one shining moment.

In this age of “how much?” I find that refreshing.

Barry Tompkins is a 40-year network television sportscaster and a San Francisco native. Email him at barrytompkins1@gmail.com.