After sitting in the dugout for more than five years, a bill to ban metal baseball bats from New York City high school baseball games is on the field and poised to round a few bases this week.

The City Council minority leader, James Oddo, the bill’s author, said yesterday he is hopeful the council will approve the proposal at its Wednesday meeting. In order for that to happen, the Youth Services Committee must first approve the measure at its hearing today. Mr. Oddo said he thinks he has the votes to move the bill through the committee.

Mr. Oddo and the bill’s supporters say metal baseball bats are dangerous for players because they propel baseballs faster and farther than wooden bats. The father of a 13-year-old boy from New Jersey who suffered severe brain damage after being struck by a ball that was hit with a nonwooden bat last summer will testify in favor the bill at today’s hearing.

“This is about making sure some kid in one of the five boroughs doesn’t needlessly die just so that Easton can continue to make all of those profits,” Mr. Oddo said, referring to one of several companies that sell metal baseball bats. He said he decided to introduce the bill once it “became clear that no one was going to unilaterally disarm.”

The bill’s opponents say metal bats are just as safe as wooden ones, and some contend they are even safer because they don’t break or splinter the way wooden bats can. During a hearing on the bill last fall, opponents argued that metal bats are an essential part of the game because they help prepare players for college-level competition and improve their performance.

“The City Council’s Youth Services Committee should base its vote on the facts — namely that there has never been a shred of evidence to show that non-wood bats are more dangerous than wood,” the head baseball coach at George Washington High School, Steve Mandl, wrote in an e-mail. “I find it extremely odd that certain council members are predicting this wrongheaded bill will pass before those facts are even heard.”

It’s been a long road for Mr. Oddo’s so-called bat bill. The minority leader, who often carries a baseball bat around City Hall because he says it helps him think, first introduced the bill in 2001.

The bill also called for a ban on metal bats at Little League games. He later returned with a revised version that applied only to high school games, which has won more widespread support.