Dave Cook has a narrow focus when he watches a baseball game, and it’s not on any player or the ball.
He studies bats. Very closely. As adroitly as a birdwatcher can distinguish one species from another by markings on feathers, Cook can identify one brand of bat by the rings on the handle. And he knows his subjects’ traits.
Whenever he sees a bat shatter as a hitter makes contact–a sight that seems increasingly common this season–he is likely to mumble “Microwave” or “Improperly kiln-dried.”
“They’re not shattering because handles are too thin or barrels are too thick,” Cook said. “More likely it’s because they were dried too quickly in a kiln or a microwave and lost too much moisture.
“It makes them lighter in weight, but it also makes them shatter quicker and more dramatically.”
That’s Cook’s opinion. And as he gives it, he is surrounded by solid credentials.
Hundreds of wooden bats lay in racks to his right. Hundreds of cylindrical wooden posts that will be carved into bats rest in bins behind him. And on the lathe before him, he is shaping one of those cylinders into an exact replica of a prototype held slightly below it by two metal clasps.
Welcome to Hoosier Bat Co., a 6,000-square-foot office/plant/warehouse owned by Cook, a former Yankees scout and onetime restaurateur.
He is now competing in the growing field of bat manufacturers. And he counts major-league ballplayers among his customers.
When Cook got into the business in the mid-1980s, big batmakers Louisville Slugger, Rawlings, Worth and Adirondack had only a few competitors. Seven years ago the field numbered a dozen. Today, thanks to a phenomenon akin to the wave of specialty shops and boutiques competing with large chain stores, 48 companies make Major League Baseball-approved bats.
A recent phenomenon involving their product, noticeable to far more casual observers than Cook, is that a lot of bats seem to breaking, even shattering, in hitters’ hands this season.
Baseball insiders have almost as many theories as there are batmakers.
White Sox equipment manager Vince Fresso agrees with Cook’s contention that some bats are dried too quickly, adding, “The wood isn’t always as good as it used to be, partly because of all the different batmakers looking for wood.”
Fresso is not a big fan of maple.
“It doesn’t hold up as well as ash in cold weather,” he said. “During one cold spell this year, Ray Durham had a week where his maple bats were breaking a lot.”
Fresso also cites “a recent trend where pitchers are coming inside more, jamming hitters with inside pitches that break off the bats.”
Cubs manager Don Baylor’s preference for Louisville Sluggers goes back to when he toured the plant as a kid. He attributes the increased bat breakage to decreased bat size, saying today’s players, in seeking customized bats, “went thinner and they started shaving them.”
That said, it is not for batmakers to question why, but to mold their product to the players’ whims, and deliver it expeditiously. “Dave is easier to work with than any of the big bat companies,” said Fresso, who orders Cook’s Hoosier bats for Durham, Magglio Ordonez, Kenny Lofton, Jose Valentin and all Sox pitchers. “I can get three or four models quickly.”
Cubs equipment manager Tom Hellmann, who orders Hoosier bats for Sammy Sosa, Corey Patterson and Delino DeShields, agrees with Cook and Fresso that ash is the best wood for bats, notwithstanding the recent attention given Barry Bonds’ favored maple stick. The San Francisco Giants’ slugger hit a record 73 home runs last season using a “Sam Bat” made by Sam Holman’s Original Maple Bat Co. of Ottawa, Canada.
But Fresso and Hellman remain ash advocates.
“I think ash is better than maple, and lasts longer,” Fresso said.
Hellman, an avowed traditionalist, agreed: “Ash has been good enough for a hundred years. Ash bats crack, but maple bats shatter in half.”
Bought in bulk, ash bats cost $33.50 to $37.50 apiece, Hellman said. Maple bats cost $40 to $50.
Many players including Sosa and Patterson use more than one brand of bat, and both Cubs have maple bats in their arsenal. Hellman ordered a dozen for each of them from Tough Bat Co., newcomers to the specialty-bat market.
“I’m not sure if they’re in Minnesota or California,” Hellman said. “I’ve called them in both states.”
Batmaking is not an unregulated market. There are rules, albeit not many.
“Basically, a bat has to be made of one piece of solid wood and cannot be more than 42 inches long or 2 3/4 inches in diameter at the thickest part,” MLB spokesman Patrick Courtney said.
Other rules govern lacquering and lamination, where the company logo may be placed, and coloring.
MLB rules allow only four bat colors–natural, black, burnt orange and “hickory,” a hue that looks metallic.
Of course, it isn’t. Professional baseball prohibits metal bats at all levels.
“And more and more players in college and high school are using wooden bats,” Cook said gratefully. “If they have any hopes of advancing in organized baseball, they’re going to have to hit with wood.”
Cook speaks from experience, having patrolled the Midwest as a Yankees scout from 1977 until 1986.
“I always thought I’d rather sign a guy hitting .290 with a wooden bat than a guy hitting .500 with a metal bat,” he said.
The proliferation of specialty wooden bats suggests players are choosier than ever. But some of their habits in games suggest otherwise.
Sosa and Patterson, for example, try different models. Sosa says his current favorites are Louisville Slugger, Rawlings and the maple model from Tough Bat . . . not that it matters all that much.
“If you can hit, you can hit,” Sosa said. “You get a piece of wood and you go up and you swing with it.
“I don’t break many bats. I have a game bat and in case I break one of those, I replace it with another one. They feel about the same.”
The Sox’s Paul Konerko has used Ordonez’s bats, among others: “I’ll grab anyone’s bats and use them.”
Teammate Valentin is more selective, preferring the Hoosier bat he began using with the Milwaukee Brewers years ago.
“I’m one of those guys who if I feel comfortable with it, I keep it,” he said.
He and Ordonez concede, however, that they distinguish bats more by generic qualities than name brand and will try different manufacturers’ models.
“I like skinny bats and long ones,” Ordonez said, describing his preference for a 34-inch bat weighing 32 to 34 ounces.
To borrow the burgermaker’s line, special orders don’t upset the likes of Hoosier Bat Co., where a recent visitor found Cook at his lathe, duplicating one customer’s favorite bat.
Both the model bat below and the solid wood cylinder above were suspended like meat on spits. Guided by electronic readings, a doughnut-shaped blade buzzed around and across the solid wood, shaving its 78 to 90 ounces to a duplicate of the 32-ounce bat below, except for nubbins at each end that were quickly sliced off with a circular saw.
From there, the raw bats are triple-coated with lacquer in another room. Some are color-lacquered. Finally, the logo and personalized markings are engraved with a laser machine that Cook’s wife, Debbie, and her sister, Andrea, operate.
Ash is the only wood Hoosier uses except for “composite” bats made with ash, maple and oak fitted and glued together. Composites are the hardest to break and can be used only in batting practice.
Cook’s batmaking team consists of eight plant employees and two sales representatives. The plant turns out 250 to 300 bats a day.
The longest step is a monthlong kiln-drying for the wood before a bat is made. Cook disdains the quick-drying processes that can crank out a bat in a few days.
Cook said he has no long-term contracts with players, but current customers include Mike Cameron of the Seattle Mariners, Roberto Alomar of the New York Mets and Tim Salmon of the Anaheim Angels, as well as the Cubs and Sox players whose bats he often hand-delivers to their clubhouses.
He ruefully acknowledged that Cameron was using a Rawlings bat when he hit four home runs against the Sox earlier this month. But he is used to that, for his clients sometimes change bats between trips to the plate.
“They come and they go, and more times than not, they come back,” he said.
