I guess I’m not mistaken when I say that there are not many households in the United States without at least one baseball bat. These bats are amazing – although they look like simple pieces of wood or metal, these bats are actually elaborate pieces of engineering built to withstand some serious shocks. Did you know, for example, that it takes over 40,000 pounds of pressure to emblazon an engraving on their surface?
Baseball bats are traditionally made out of ash tree trunks with a 14 to 16 inches diameter. Such a trunk can be used to manufacture up to 60 bats. The trunk is split into smaller pieces, that are carefully inspected for the right grain direction, then left to “season” – stacked in a yard for at least six months so they can properly dry out and become fit for processing. The best baseball bats are always made on special order. When an order comes, the bat turners – artisans specially trained in the manufacture of baseball bats – start to create it using the ash tree pieces above. The wood is first placed on an automatic lathe, giving the bat its rough shape, then sanded to make them smooth. This process is followed by another round of inspections.
Each bat ever made at the factory has a model in its warehouse – typically identified by the player who first requested it. Whenever an order for a specific bat arrives, the bat turners select a billet from the storage and place it on the lathe, and the model they need to replicate is placed above and behind. The turner than shaves and sands the billet to the exact model required.
When the bat has got its final shape, the workers brand it using a press. For this workers can use one of two methods – brand stamping or foil stamping (the traditional way), or laser engraving. When the branding is done, the workers stain and varnish the bats, giving them their smooth finish. The bats are then boxed and delivered to the team that ordered them.
One would not even imagine how sophisticated the manufacturing process of a baseball bat is – there is no place for chance here, not even with the best red flush casino promotions. The bats need to be carefully measured, weighted and inspected repeatedly to make them perfect for the player – their career might depend on it, after all…