Batting around: Once declared dead, wooden bat has come full circle

12:48 PM CDT on Monday, August 9, 2004

By GARY JACOBSON / The Dallas Morning News

The bat man of Dallas guides his big pickup truck into the fast lane and slides a Guns N' Roses DVD into the on-board player.

He's returning from his manufacturing plant in Mount Pleasant. The cellphone is on and he's open for business, wooden bat business. William, in Florida, wants information on baseball bats he is testing against a competitor's. A summer team manager in Virginia wants prices and delivery times. Agent Billy Martin Jr. wants a deal for a client.

Tom Fox / DMN Cade Griffis, the bat man and president of D-Bat Inc., expects to ship 25,000 bats from his three-year-old East Texas factory this year, more than double a year ago. That's a long way from the woodless future foreseen by Sports Illustrated in 1989, less than 20 years after aluminum baseball bats first appeared and took over the amateur game. Because of economics, the magazine predicted, the low minor leagues would begin using aluminum by the early 1990s and the majors would convert to metal by the turn of the century.Instead, the millennium sees wood as entrenched as ever in the pros and gaining popularity among amateurs.

It wasn't long ago that some experts were declaring the wooden baseball bat all but dead. Bad call. Wood is coming back.

Cade Griffis, the bat man and president of D-Bat Inc., expects to ship 25,000 bats from his three-year-old East Texas factory this year, more than double a year ago.

He's not alone. Dave Cook of Hoosier Bat in Indiana says he will make 50,000 bats this year, up from 42,000 a year ago. Doug Wheeler, who has made furniture parts for 15 years and bats for three years in New York state, expects his bat business, Superior Bat, to soon rival his furniture business in sales volume.

And Mike Bushnell in Minnesota says sales at his three-year-old wooden bat dealership, Prowoodbats, could reach $130,000 this year, quadruple a year ago.

"Within the next 10 years, you'll see pretty much everybody going back to wood, even the high schools," he says.

Bushnell probably got a little carried away. Aluminum isn't going to disappear any time soon.


But you can't blame him for getting excited. He was being interviewed by phone while selling bats at a Georgia wooden bat tournament. He sold 120 bats that day and had to order more, with express delivery, to get them before the tournament ended.

New summer leagues, such as the Texas Collegiate League, which D-Bat supplies, are forming around the country. Some American Legion leagues and community college conferences are using wood. As are adult leagues, such as the Dallas Amateur Baseball Association, and select leagues for younger players. Even some high school teams in Massachusetts have switched to wood.

"I didn't realize how large the market was until I started making bats," Wheeler said.

Why the return to wood?

Safety is an issue. Rule changes a few years ago made aluminum bats perform more like wood, but many say a well-hit ball still comes off an aluminum bat with too much velocity. Pitchers can't react.

Barry Bonds' assault on home run records also helped popularize maple bats as an alternative to ash, spawning new demand and a new generation of bat makers.

Wood revival

But bigger factors in wood's revival, Griffis says, are two groups looking for an edge. Major league scouts believe they can evaluate prospects better if they see them hitting with wood bats. And players want to become better hitters.

Because it takes more skill to hit with a smaller sweet spot on the bat, swinging wood makes a player a better hitter when he returns to swinging metal. It also might help him avoid that dreaded scouting tag: aluminum hitter.

Tom Fox / DMN Hundreds of patterns used for cutting bats hang from the workshop wall of D-Bat, Inc.

Griffis says he was convinced to start making bats when 12- and 13-year-olds starting coming into the retail shop at his Dallas Baseball Academy of Texas in Addison wanting wood. "You could see it was a big market," he said.

Make no mistake. The big companies – Louisville Slugger, Easton and Rawlings – are still the main players. Louisville Slugger expects to sell 1.2 million wooden bats this year.

But there is opportunity for smaller competitors.

Quality and customer service drive business, say the owners of D-Bat, Hoosier, Superior and smaller manufacturers.

Wheeler, who makes only maple bats, says manufacturers have no trouble getting the raw material they need. And they don't reserve the best wood and bat models for the pros.

"I'll sell major league lumber to any kid," says Hoosier's Cook, who uses only ash.

Through one of D-Bat's dealers, any player can get the same quality maple bat the company makes for Rafael Palmeiro. Cost: about $70, with the player's name etched on the barrel.

"The high school kids, the college kids, they love their name on the bat," Griffis said. D-Bat also makes ash bats, which cost from $39 to $75.

With aluminum bats selling for $250 and more, the cost difference for wood bats, which break, and metal bats, which usually don't, is not as large as many think.

"I tell kids that for what they've got in aluminum in their trunks they could be swinging wood," says Cook, who sells a "high-minor league" bat for $23. "If they break 18 wood bats in a season, I tell them to go play soccer." All agree, better hitters break fewer bats.

A baseball background

Griffis, 30, comes to the bat business with a baseball background. He played at Dallas Baptist University and in the Kansas City Royals' minor league system before bad knees helped him decide to stop playing.

With his brother, Kyle, and financial partner Craig Penfold, Griffis started the baseball academy in 1998, focusing on camps, clinics, private lessons, cage rentals and uniform sales.

In 2001, Griffis, Penfold and Jack MacKay Jr. started the bat company separate from the baseball academy though borrowing the acronym.

The partners have since had a falling out. MacKay left D-Bat last year. The two sides sued each other. David James, an attorney for MacKay, and Penfold, the chief executive of D-Bat and an attorney, both say they are hopeful a settlement can be reached.

Initially, D-Bat strongly courted professional players, who often swing more than one kind of bat. That was a mistake, Griffis says. There is ego involved in making bats for major leaguers, but not much money.

"In fact, you're lucky if you break even," Griffis says.

Worried about spectator injuries from broken bats, Major League Baseball mandated new liability insurance requirements for its bat makers for 2003. D-Bat chose not to pay between $50,000 and $60,000 to become certified. (Major leaguers could continue to use a bat they used in 2002, even if it wasn't from an approved maker.)

"It was the smartest thing we ever did," Griffis said. "It gave us time to focus on our sales force and our retail network."

The company now has more than 350 dealers, among them Bushnell in Minnesota. D-Bat also makes private label bats for other companies, including Baseball Express, a large catalog firm.

Griffis said many smaller bat makers, who had no pipeline to amateur players, went out of business because of the new rules.

Insurance requirements eased this year. Griffis says D-Bat paid about $15,000 to become approved for professional use. A spokesman for Major League Baseball said there are 27 approved bat makers this year, compared with 14 last year and a peak of 48 in 2002.

Some approved companies are quite small, and their business is a labor of love as much as commerce.

Dave Valentini's Mash Bats in Canada supplies Toronto's Vernon Wells, who is from Arlington. Valentini says he will hand paint the logos on every one of the 1,500 bats he makes this year.

Just inside the entrance of the D-Bat factory is a large showroom lined with bats.

Front and center are D-Bats made for Edgar Martinez, Ben Grieve, Ruben Sierra, Roger Clemens, Alex Rodriguez, Brady Anderson and Jim Thome.

"Edgar Martinez only swings a 31.5-ounce bat," Griffis said. "If you send him 31.8, he won't take it."

Griffis also tells of a brush with bat-maker immortality. Palmeiro hit career homer No. 499 with a D-Bat, then cracked it and grabbed an Old Hickory bat to hit No. 500.

"Now, that bat is in the Hall of Fame," Griffis said, shaking his head.

D-Bat supplies about 1,600 bats to pro players, most to minor leaguers. Among them: Coppell's Jason Stokes, with the Class AA Carolina Mudcats, and Plano East's Wes Bankston, with the Class A Charleston Riverdogs.

"Wes is the most high maintenance minor leaguer I've ever seen," Griffis says.

Then he explained that to make each of Bankston's six tracers, or pattern bats for his custom models, D-Bat had to slice up about a half-dozen other good bats, glue the pieces together in the right combination of barrel styles, handles and knobs, and use them as new patterns on the lathe.

"I told him, 'Wes, you're killing me,' " Griffis said.

That's why it's hard to make money on the pros.



D-BAT INC.

Factory size: About 10,000 square feet.

Located: Mount Pleasant, Texas

Began operation: October 2001.

Employees: Five full-time, one part-time at the factory. Three others handle ordering and paperwork in a Plano office.

Capacity: 50,000 bats a year.