Bat Factory Tour!

Those that know me know I have 3 loves-- drumming, woodworking, and baseballing. I've played baseball for as long as I can remember and have umpired for almost as long. I recently got into an old guy, wood bat, baseball league named after legendary fictional character, Roy Hobbs.

Last summer, my buddy bought me a Louisville Slugger bat when he was at a tour of the factory in KY and he brought it down to me to use. It was responsible for many hits last season, but alas, it suffered an agonizing death in batting practice a couple weeks ago.

Little did I know that there's a bat company only an hour away from me, here in TN. The owner just started making bats, years back, and they've because all the rage in professional baseball, including MLB. Guys like Mike Trout and Yasiel Puig are making this company a household name in baseball circuits.

The "factory" is literally out in the middle of nowhere and you'd miss it if you blinked. Seriously, Google it and check out the google map street view. It's in a wooded lot, in a couple of large metal sheds. Awesome story and great people working there, just churning out bats for future hall-of-famers..... and me. :-)

So my teammate and I went there, today, to tour the factory and pick through the bins of "rejects" that have printing/paint flaws or came in a tiny bit over/under weight. They sell them for about 60-70% off, but they are identical in specs/performance.

The woodworker in me was ecstatic about touring the "factory" so he took us on a guided tour. *I put factory in quotes because the whole place seriously fits in a couple metal buildings not much bigger than double-wide trailers. :-)

I was very jealous of their dust collection and spray booth! I was also very impressed by the guy who started the company in his garage with a lathe and some hand split pieces of maple. And now his bats are partly responsible for sending guys to the baseball hall of fame.

Here's some pictures I took. I should've taken more.

Reply to
-MIKE-
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That sounds like a great experience. Pretty to cool to hear that a "little guy" is making a name for himself.

Your comment about your bat's untimely death, especially at this time of ye ar, reminds me of when my daughter played, and I coached, high school softball. Early s pring in Western NY can still be pretty chilly (It's 35° right now) It's common for practices and games to be held in mid-50's (or less) weather. It's also not uncommon for a fastball to shatter the composite bats that the girls use these days. Anything below 60 ° and the girls leave their good bats in their lockers. A shattered composite bat is a dangerous instrument. Multiple sharp jagged points of carbon fiber.

Reply to
DerbyDad03

Bats are supposed to be wood!

Reply to
Ed Pawlowski

It wasn't all-that-long-ago that bats made of maple became common in the big leagues ...

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Another guy who started at his idea - in the garage .. gotta love it ! John T.

Reply to
hubops

First time I ever heard of a wedding bat. I think a divorce bat would be more appropriate.

Reply to
G Ross

This spring has been a particularly cold one. I had middle school game to umpire after the bat factory tour. I decided I didn't need a long sleeve shirt. Big mistake!

Reply to
-MIKE-

My old guy league is wood bat, mostly for tradition and player protection. I would like to use one of those composite bats in BP sometime just to send some over the fence.

They now make wood bats with composite handles, so you get the best of both worlds. The tradition, true performance, sound and feel of wood, with the longevity of composite since most bats break in the handles.

Reply to
-MIKE-

That's cool, I didn't know about him. I used ash bats up until discovering maple. All it took was one solid "POP!" in the cages to make the switch. A lot of guys still like ash for the flex, but the ball just seem to jump off of maple.

Reply to
-MIKE-

Must be something in the water, up there in Ottawa - a guy named Leonard Lee started a business there, out of a rented basement ... selling mail-order stove kits ! John T.

Reply to
hubops

Maple has shown a tendency to splinter into sharp pieces. I have a lot of bats from 16" softball (no gloves, but broken fingers) aluminum and ash. Do not play any more as my body minds.

Reply to
Markem

Yes, and that's why I don't use maple drumsticks, anymore. They just snap and they're gone, with no warning. Hickory and Oak, on the other hand, will splinter and start to flex a bit which gives you enough warning to switch sticks between songs.

MLB knew the horses were out of the barn with the danger of Maple bats flying into the stands and knew the Players Association would never, ever, consider a ban.

So, the compromise is two-fold.

  1. The bats have an ink test on the handle. The ink shows the direction of the grain. The grain has to be perfectly straight with no deviation beyond 3 degrees. You will see the ink stain in a clear diamond on the handle that is forbidden to be painted over. An umpire can disqualify a bat that has any substance covering that diamond.

  1. The started putting the labels at a 45 degree angle to the grain, instead of 90 degrees. Tests showed that a Maple bats was more likely to break in two with the barrel flying into the stands when swung at 90 degrees. Same tests showed when the bat was held at 45 degrees the bat was more likely to split and stay together and/or go forward.

The players are *supposed to* hold the bats with the labels up, as usual. But look closely. Many guys using Maple bats will hold the label at 45, which put the grain at 90, like they're used to. :-)

Reply to
-MIKE-

Looks like a great place to visit. So does he air dry his blanks, or does h e kiln dry them before putting them on the racks? It's interesting he doesn 't paint the edges of the blanks to keep them from splitting while drying. I wonder what water percentage is the sweet spot for his product.

Reply to
Michael

Full composite bats break at the handles too, but in a different manner.

Common shape of break in a wooden bat. Note the single point.

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Common shape of a break in a composite bat. Note the multiple points. CSI might have trouble identifying the murder weapon if you stabbed someone wit h this. ;-)

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Reply to
DerbyDad03

No kiln. I don't know about the moisture content, but I'm curious. Next time I'm there, I'll ask him. There is quite a bit of extra length on all the blanks, so I'm guessing any checking would be cut off.

Also, one thing that sets him apart is that they split their wood to get their dowels, whereas many others cut the logs with a bandsaw, like regular lumber.

Splitting is an old-school technique that I'm glad to see being put to use in the perfect application for it.

Reply to
-MIKE-

Pretty cool. And those are very unique looking bats.

Reply to
Leon

On 4/20/2018 4:12 PM, Michael wrote: ...

I'd wager long odds that they're purchased to spec from mill as riven rough dowels; note the unopened shrink-wrapped bin of blanks to the right of the orange-tipped blanks in the mostly-used bin...

His FAQ site doesn't say what specific moisture content other than must be "very dry"; claims over lifetime a maple bat in humid climate of use may pick up an ounce of so of moisture over leaving-factory weight.

Typical furniture-spec's are something like 7%; I'd guess unlikely much less; after all, bats are going to be used in locations outdoors or much like outdoors in mostly warm weather; altho there are locations such as AZ or S CA, _most_ major league teams are located in areas that are relatively humid.

Since once the free water is removed, drying below that point requires air drying in lower humidity or by heat, once removed from the kiln, it will reacclimate to an equilibrium moisture content (EMC) that is dependent solely on the RH of the surrounding air (given sufficient time). The point in finishing furniture is to slow down the changes in EMC with changing humidity; a finished bat similarly will be slower to react than a blank.

See Hoadley _Understanding Wood_, Chapt 4 on "Water and Wood" for the in-depth story...

Reply to
dpb

Looking at the photo, I'm surprised some nanny group has not tried to ban baseball. Too dangerous for children.

Reply to
Ed Pawlowski

40 + years ago, I took an evening course at a Toronto high school -

- Woodworking Basics - I think. I bought some rough-cut kiln dried boards from a back-home saw-mill - lumber was a side-line for him

- his main contract was making maple blanks for ... get this .. bowling pins and shoe lasts. I swear. He ran 2 fairly large ? kilns and in-between jobs - he kept the kilns and himself busy with odd-job-lots of lumber. I was quite happy that he would even talk to me ! .. let alone sell me a few dozen various boards for my new hobby .. the Toronto People were envious - buying their finished materials at the local Beaver Lumber. I was happy to use the big high-school planer ! for my "ugly" rough cut stuff. If I remember correctly : : the maple blanks were shipped to the USA for finishing. : this guy was ~ the last supplier for these. < 1976 > The saw-mill property is now a little subdivision of homes. In driving by, now, I just remember the saw-mill .. the friendly owner, and the treasures of his lumber piles .. .. I still have some scraps of his 1 inch walnut .. .. scraps of 2 inch good white pine.. and my favourite - cherry ! .. wish I'd bought a truckload. Cheers ! Ernie Moore !

reading assignment : Luke Baldwins Vow by Morley Callaghan

John T.

Reply to
hubops

When I was a kid the pro teams used to give the cracked bats to young fans in the stands. They'd take them home, tape them up and use them in their sand lot games.

The Mets (and probably other teams) use to have Bat Days. They give hundreds of fans a miniature (18"?) bat with the team logo on it. Hundreds of NYC fans, many of them drunk and rowdy.

What could possibly go wrong? ;-)

Reply to
DerbyDad03

When you go to a game, now, all you see is people with their heads buried in their phones. It's no wonder people are getting injured from foul balls and broken bats. Put your fu@%!ng phone down and watch the game! Experience real life, not simulated on a screen!

Notice the phone in the kid's hands.

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Reply to
-MIKE-

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