Hi there, our friend group recently got into baseball (UK, so not super popular here) and got some bat and ball combos. A wooden 32 and an aluminium 34. We were playing with the "soft ball" with the rubber and sponge core, no issues. Then we decided to try the hard cork ball. I was using the aluminium bat and after the second hit I noticed the 2 dents in the end of the bat, so we decided to go back to the soft ball and have been playing with that just fine.

What confuses me is that the aluminium bat came with the hard ball, and the wooden bat came with the soft ball, so logically the metal bat should be suited to be used with the hard ball. It dented IMMEDIATELY from both hits with the hard ball. The brand is "slazenger". And the wooden bat said to only be used with the soft ball, but to my understanding pro play is a hard ball with a wooden bat?

My question is, was this something to be expected? The ball bat combos were cheap(£25\~/$33\~, on discount), I assume that has something to do with the quality, but I'm hesitant to buy a more expensive bat for the same thing to happen again. 

My other question is where to get more of the "soft balls", we don't mind just playing with those, but the seams are beginning to come away and we will need replacements. (Also hurts less when getting hit by pitch lol)

Is this a "tee-ball"? I understand balls are graded as 8U, 12U 15U ect, but all the balls I can see online have code names that make no sense to an outsider, like the Rawlings "ROLB-1" Vs "ROLB-2-PC". The other issue is the sports softball and rounders, making it hard to find things here

Cheers for helping some newbies out!

Confused about denting