Would a baseball bat do more damage on a person if the point of contact was the very end of the bat (torque=force x lever arm) or at the sweet spot? (assuming the bat was swung with a constant angular momentum)
The sweet spot. Hitting someone with the bat is very similar to hitting a ball. When you hit a ball with the sweet spot of the bat, the bat slows down and begins to rotate slowly. The slowing is good because it means that some of its kinetic energy has been transferred to the ball. The rotation is bad, because it means that the bat has put energy into rotation (spinning objects have kinetic energy). If the ball hit the bat’s center of mass, the bat wouldn’t rotate and the transfer of energy would be better; except for one new problem: the bat would begin to vibrate and that vibration would use energy. By hitting the ball on the sweet spot, you keep the bat from vibrating and wasting some of its energy. The transfer of energy and momentum to the ball is maximized. The same occurs when hitting any other object, including a person.