WEBVTT - TechStuff at the Bat 0:00:04.160 --> 0:00:07.200 Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from half 0:00:07.240 --> 0:00:13.800 stuff works dot com. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. 0:00:13.840 --> 0:00:17.040 I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer here 0:00:17.120 --> 0:00:19.599 at how Stuff Works in a love all things tech 0:00:19.800 --> 0:00:22.919 and today is an interesting topic. It's one that I 0:00:22.920 --> 0:00:26.760 would not have considered, but tech Stuff listener Carter asked 0:00:26.800 --> 0:00:30.240 that I record an episode about baseball bats, and on 0:00:30.360 --> 0:00:33.040 first blush, you might think such a topic is unfit 0:00:33.240 --> 0:00:37.480 for a technology podcast. The O E. D. That being 0:00:37.560 --> 0:00:42.960 The Oxford English Dictionary defines technology as quote the application 0:00:43.040 --> 0:00:47.200 of scientific knowledge for practical purposes, especially in industry end quote. 0:00:47.520 --> 0:00:50.839 A baseball bat hardly seems to qualify on casual glance, 0:00:50.960 --> 0:00:55.840 but baseball is a big industry in of itself. In fact, 0:00:55.880 --> 0:00:59.880 according to Forbes, in two thousand seventeen, Major League base 0:01:00.000 --> 0:01:04.840 ball revenues were more than ten billion dollars. That was 0:01:04.880 --> 0:01:06.840 the first time in history that the league get hit 0:01:06.880 --> 0:01:09.679 a number that high. And when you have that much 0:01:09.800 --> 0:01:13.399 money dedicated to an endeavor, more attention, care, and detail 0:01:13.680 --> 0:01:17.160 comes to bear on every aspect of that industry, including, 0:01:17.800 --> 0:01:21.960 as it turns out, the construction and design of baseball bats. 0:01:22.480 --> 0:01:24.679 And there's a lot of tech that goes into the 0:01:24.880 --> 0:01:28.559 making of a modern baseball bat these days, especially from 0:01:28.600 --> 0:01:32.600 the major manufacturers, and that's because baseball bats have become 0:01:32.680 --> 0:01:36.520 something of a revered piece of equipment. In fact, I'd 0:01:36.560 --> 0:01:38.680 go so far as to say there's a lot of 0:01:38.720 --> 0:01:42.400 superstition that feeds into the way baseball bats are constructed. 0:01:42.640 --> 0:01:45.560 Once a player finds a little success with a particular 0:01:45.600 --> 0:01:49.000 type of bat, they're likely to stick with that model 0:01:49.280 --> 0:01:51.840 out of a belief that at least some of their 0:01:51.880 --> 0:01:55.920 success is due to the performance of their equipment. But 0:01:56.160 --> 0:01:59.720 bats don't last forever, so there has to be some 0:01:59.760 --> 0:02:04.320 way to replicate a particular bat as closely as possible. 0:02:05.040 --> 0:02:08.480 When you're using a material like wood, that becomes challenging. So, 0:02:08.520 --> 0:02:12.080 as it turns out, this involves both advanced woodworking tools 0:02:12.120 --> 0:02:16.400 and a certain set of skills, as Leam Neeson would say, 0:02:16.520 --> 0:02:20.679 and it's certainly true that there are specific physics involved 0:02:20.720 --> 0:02:24.720 that make one bat different from another bat. So today 0:02:24.880 --> 0:02:27.520 we'll take a look at the history of the baseball bat, 0:02:27.840 --> 0:02:31.600 how bat size was eventually codified in the rules of baseball, 0:02:31.880 --> 0:02:37.760 and how these bats are made today. So batter up first, 0:02:37.760 --> 0:02:40.320 a bit about the history of baseball because it is 0:02:40.400 --> 0:02:45.639 based on lies and deceit and lots of money, which 0:02:45.680 --> 0:02:49.960 I think is really cool. Back in the early nineteen hundreds, 0:02:49.960 --> 0:02:52.639 there was an apocryphal story that made the rounds regarding 0:02:52.639 --> 0:02:56.399 baseball's origins, and this was a response to a request 0:02:56.480 --> 0:03:01.600 from a fellow by the name of Albert Goodwill Baulding. Spalding, 0:03:01.760 --> 0:03:04.919 whose name you might recognize if you've ever gone inside 0:03:05.000 --> 0:03:08.600 a sporting goods store, had played professional baseball in the 0:03:08.639 --> 0:03:11.440 eighteen seventies, and he was a pitcher. He was a 0:03:11.520 --> 0:03:14.880 high performing pitcher in the eighteen seventies, and he was 0:03:14.960 --> 0:03:17.919 reportedly one of the first players to use a baseball 0:03:17.919 --> 0:03:20.920 glove to help field the ball. He opened up a 0:03:20.960 --> 0:03:24.120 sporting goods store and became a part owner of the 0:03:24.240 --> 0:03:28.359 Chicago White Stockings baseball team. He was also one of 0:03:28.400 --> 0:03:31.280 the founders of the National League of Baseball. But one 0:03:31.320 --> 0:03:33.959 thing kept gnawing in the back of his mind. Where 0:03:34.000 --> 0:03:38.640 did baseball actually come from? This question about the origins 0:03:38.640 --> 0:03:43.119 of baseball didn't just pop up unprompted. Spalding's business published 0:03:43.160 --> 0:03:46.960 a journal called The Baseball Guide, and the editor of 0:03:46.960 --> 0:03:49.760 the Baseball Guide was a guy named Henry Chadwick, who 0:03:49.800 --> 0:03:54.200 wrote about what appeared to be the English roots of baseball, 0:03:54.320 --> 0:04:00.760 as in the country of England, baseball shared some similarities 0:04:00.760 --> 0:04:04.040 with some older games, like cricket, which had been around 0:04:04.040 --> 0:04:08.920 for quite some time, and a British game called rounders. Cricket, 0:04:09.240 --> 0:04:11.760 like I said, I've been around for for centuries in 0:04:11.840 --> 0:04:16.240 some form or another throughout English colonies and territories. Rounders, however, 0:04:16.279 --> 0:04:19.760 which shared several similar rules without a baseball, was seen 0:04:19.880 --> 0:04:25.000 as something of a children's game. Little girls played rounders. 0:04:25.720 --> 0:04:28.800 This appeared to gall Mr Spalding, who couldn't stand the 0:04:28.839 --> 0:04:31.600 thought of the sport he had played and now supported, 0:04:31.680 --> 0:04:34.719 grew out of a child's game from England. He wrote 0:04:34.720 --> 0:04:38.400 a rebuttal for the Baseball Guide and disputed that something 0:04:38.480 --> 0:04:42.080 as American as baseball could have evolved from a schoolyard 0:04:42.120 --> 0:04:45.159 game from England. He wanted some sort of definitive proof 0:04:45.440 --> 0:04:49.960 that baseball was through and through an American game played 0:04:49.960 --> 0:04:55.799 by Americans for Americans America, and so in the early 0:04:55.839 --> 0:04:59.880 twentieth century, Spaulding and his buddy Abraham G. Mills form 0:05:00.120 --> 0:05:04.360 an investigative body called the Mills Commission to look into 0:05:04.440 --> 0:05:08.440 the matter to call the body unbiased would be a 0:05:08.480 --> 0:05:12.480 flat out lie. Spalding stacked the commission with members who 0:05:12.560 --> 0:05:18.760 shared his anti rounders, anti English sentiments. Sportswriter Henry Chadwick, 0:05:18.880 --> 0:05:21.800 who had written about those similarities between baseball and rounders, 0:05:21.800 --> 0:05:26.160 as I mentioned earlier, was pointedly not invited to participate, 0:05:26.480 --> 0:05:30.680 despite the fact that Spalding had but looked for chadwick 0:05:30.800 --> 0:05:34.560 support for the idea of a an investigative commission in 0:05:34.560 --> 0:05:37.120 the first place. So he goes to Chadwick says, Hey, 0:05:37.160 --> 0:05:40.799 maybe we have an investigative body look into this matter 0:05:40.920 --> 0:05:43.240 and and and see if there is any link between 0:05:43.360 --> 0:05:46.760 rounders and baseball. And Chadwick says, yeah, that sounds it 0:05:46.839 --> 0:05:50.560 sounds reasonable. And then they specifically did not invite him 0:05:50.600 --> 0:05:53.680 to be part of this commission. Now, a fellow by 0:05:53.680 --> 0:05:57.880 the name of Abner Graves of Denver, Colorado, claimed to 0:05:57.920 --> 0:06:02.400 have the answers see the commission, published accounts in various 0:06:02.400 --> 0:06:06.320 newspapers across the country saying, do you have any evidence 0:06:06.480 --> 0:06:09.279 for the origins of baseball? Do you have stories, you 0:06:09.279 --> 0:06:13.320 have anything that can connect baseball to how it all 0:06:13.360 --> 0:06:15.760 got started here in the United States? And this guy 0:06:15.839 --> 0:06:19.800 named Abner Graves sent in a response. Graves, who was 0:06:19.839 --> 0:06:22.720 a miner out in Denver, Colorado, wrote that when he 0:06:22.760 --> 0:06:25.800 was growing up in Cooperstown, New York, he witnessed the 0:06:25.839 --> 0:06:29.039 creation of baseball. He was there when it started. He 0:06:29.120 --> 0:06:31.359 says that it all came from the mind of a 0:06:31.360 --> 0:06:34.960 guy named Abner double Day. It was a good American 0:06:35.040 --> 0:06:37.719 lad who went on to fire the very first shot 0:06:38.040 --> 0:06:41.120 for the Union in the Civil War at Fort Sumter, 0:06:41.640 --> 0:06:43.960 and he rose to the rank of Major General of 0:06:44.040 --> 0:06:48.960 volunteers during the war. According to Graves, double Day taught 0:06:49.160 --> 0:06:51.680 the game to local kids in Cooper Sound, New York, 0:06:51.760 --> 0:06:55.520 and he scratched out the diagram of a baseball diamond 0:06:55.600 --> 0:06:57.880 in the dirt, and later he drew it out on 0:06:58.000 --> 0:07:00.480 a piece of paper along with a bay six set 0:07:00.480 --> 0:07:03.479 of rules for the game, and thus claimed Graves was 0:07:03.520 --> 0:07:06.120 baseball born. It was the invention of a man who 0:07:06.160 --> 0:07:08.520 would go on to become a war hero for the 0:07:08.640 --> 0:07:12.840 Union during the Civil War. Without bothering to really investigate 0:07:12.880 --> 0:07:15.559 these claims too much, the Mills Commission published a report 0:07:15.640 --> 0:07:20.040 stating that baseball was really definitely certainly American through and through, 0:07:20.440 --> 0:07:23.320 and that double Day had invented the game around the 0:07:23.400 --> 0:07:28.360 year eighteen thirty nine. Further, a Cooper's Town millionaire named 0:07:28.480 --> 0:07:32.440 Stephen C. Clark felt that tourism was the only industry 0:07:32.480 --> 0:07:35.720 that could save his hometown, which was suffering during the 0:07:35.840 --> 0:07:40.160 Great Depression. A local farmer in Cooperstown, or near Cooperstown, 0:07:40.200 --> 0:07:43.440 actually just outside of it, discovered some of what were 0:07:43.480 --> 0:07:47.560 believed to be Abner Graves belongings in nineteen thirty five. 0:07:47.680 --> 0:07:51.640 This farmer was a relative of Abner Graves, and while 0:07:51.720 --> 0:07:54.040 going through one of the old houses, said, Hey, there's 0:07:54.040 --> 0:07:55.840 this trunk here, and it's got some stuff in it, 0:07:56.320 --> 0:08:02.120 um some photographs, some letters. There's also a ball very 0:08:02.160 --> 0:08:03.960 similar to the type they've been used in the early 0:08:04.040 --> 0:08:08.560 days of baseball, which Clark jumped on as definitive proof 0:08:08.640 --> 0:08:12.440 that this story was absolutely gospel, and he decided to 0:08:12.440 --> 0:08:17.560 create a new destination in Cooperstown. He declared that the 0:08:17.560 --> 0:08:22.080 baseball that was discovered was an Abner double day baseball, 0:08:22.320 --> 0:08:25.240 and he began plans to build a baseball museum, with 0:08:25.360 --> 0:08:28.320 the whole venture anchored to the idea that Cooperstown was 0:08:28.360 --> 0:08:30.880 the birthplace of the game. It would be ready to 0:08:30.920 --> 0:08:34.520 celebrate the centennial anniversary of baseball. According to the double 0:08:34.600 --> 0:08:37.760 Day story, which means that it would be ready in 0:08:37.920 --> 0:08:41.199 nineteen thirty nine. More on that in a second. Now, 0:08:41.200 --> 0:08:44.840 there are more than a few problems with Abner Graves's story. 0:08:45.080 --> 0:08:49.280 Problem No. One. In eighteen thirty nine, Abner Graves would 0:08:49.280 --> 0:08:53.480 have been five years old. Abner double Day, the supposed 0:08:53.640 --> 0:08:57.520 inventor of baseball, would have been nearly twenty years old, 0:08:58.520 --> 0:09:01.920 and it seems unlikely that the two would have played 0:09:01.960 --> 0:09:06.239 together in a game of baseball. A twenty year old 0:09:06.440 --> 0:09:09.120 teaching a five year old how to play baseball in 0:09:09.240 --> 0:09:11.800 order to have an organized game of some sort does 0:09:11.840 --> 0:09:15.680 not seem very realistic. Problem Number two. In eighteen thirty nine, 0:09:15.880 --> 0:09:19.520 Adner double Day wasn't in Cooperstown, New York. He was 0:09:19.640 --> 0:09:22.000 enrolled in West Point and didn't have leave to travel 0:09:22.040 --> 0:09:24.560 from campus until the summer of eighteen forty, and even 0:09:24.600 --> 0:09:26.960 then it was not for more than just a little 0:09:26.960 --> 0:09:29.880 bit more than a month. So Problem three. In all 0:09:30.000 --> 0:09:33.280 the surviving journals and papers that were written by double Day, 0:09:33.720 --> 0:09:37.760 none of them mentioned baseball. In fact, the only connection 0:09:37.840 --> 0:09:41.040 to baseball with double Day at all seems to be 0:09:41.120 --> 0:09:44.720 that he once requested some sporting equipment during his service 0:09:44.800 --> 0:09:48.520 in the Union Army for the purposes of recreation for soldiers. 0:09:49.000 --> 0:09:53.400 Problem number four. Alexander Cartwright Jr. Who was a founding 0:09:53.440 --> 0:09:57.360 member of the Knickerbocker Club in New York, was believed 0:09:57.360 --> 0:09:59.640 to be the person who drew out the structure of 0:09:59.679 --> 0:10:02.000 the Bay Baseball Diamond and wrote down the rules for 0:10:02.040 --> 0:10:07.000 the first time in and unlike the claim made by Graves, 0:10:07.000 --> 0:10:10.400 this claim actually had documentation to back it up. But 0:10:11.080 --> 0:10:15.240 the Hall of Fame is in Cooperstown, New York anyway. Now, 0:10:15.280 --> 0:10:19.040 thanks for indulging me and my love of history and 0:10:19.160 --> 0:10:22.200 of flim flam. Next we're gonna talk about the evolution 0:10:22.240 --> 0:10:24.760 of the baseball bat and the physics behind whacking a 0:10:24.840 --> 0:10:28.640 baseball real hard. But first let's take a quick break 0:10:28.880 --> 0:10:39.520 to thank our sponsor. So the earliest bats were really 0:10:39.640 --> 0:10:43.680 just sticks, sturdy, handy stick you could use to bat 0:10:43.720 --> 0:10:47.600 at a ball. Early baseball players would frequently whittle their 0:10:47.640 --> 0:10:50.920 own bats to suit their individual playing styles. Pictures, by 0:10:50.920 --> 0:10:54.920 the way, would end up constructing their own baseballs before 0:10:55.000 --> 0:10:59.160 everything got organized and regulated. Before the game was structured 0:10:59.280 --> 0:11:02.000 enough to have the regulations about such things, bats could 0:11:02.000 --> 0:11:05.000 be of many different shapes and sizes. There were no 0:11:05.080 --> 0:11:08.440 guidelines saying they must be a certain length or smaller. 0:11:08.920 --> 0:11:12.520 Early baseball bats could be flat, they could be round, 0:11:12.600 --> 0:11:14.520 they could be long, they could be short, they could 0:11:14.520 --> 0:11:18.240 be fat. Bats also tend to be really heavy, because 0:11:18.280 --> 0:11:21.200 the common wisdom was if it's heavy, it'll make the 0:11:21.240 --> 0:11:23.800 ball go farther when you hit it. I'll talk more 0:11:23.840 --> 0:11:25.440 about that in the next section when we get to 0:11:25.440 --> 0:11:28.720 the physics of baseball. Bat's, by the way, have a 0:11:28.760 --> 0:11:31.760 basic anatomy. The business end of a baseball bat is 0:11:31.800 --> 0:11:34.920 the barrel. That's the wider end. That's the part that 0:11:35.000 --> 0:11:38.120 you hit the baseball with, or at least you try 0:11:38.160 --> 0:11:40.120 to hit the baseball with if you're like me, it's 0:11:40.160 --> 0:11:44.160 the part that totally with when the baseball flies past me. 0:11:44.240 --> 0:11:48.880 At the other end is the handle That obviously is 0:11:48.920 --> 0:11:52.320 the end that you hold onto and tada. That's your 0:11:52.400 --> 0:11:58.200 basic baseball bat anatomy. Players would either craft their own bats, 0:11:58.320 --> 0:12:00.680 or they would get a carpenter to make one for them, 0:12:00.840 --> 0:12:03.800 and sometimes they had to make do with makeshift bats. 0:12:03.880 --> 0:12:07.960 According to Roy Kerr, who wrote the book Sliding Billy 0:12:08.080 --> 0:12:11.840 Hamilton's The Life and times of baseball's first great leadoff hitter, 0:12:12.320 --> 0:12:15.280 the Philadelphia Athletics once ran into a bit of trouble 0:12:15.360 --> 0:12:18.560 during a game way back in eighteen sixty five, when 0:12:18.559 --> 0:12:22.360 the team broke every single bat they had brought to 0:12:22.400 --> 0:12:26.080 the game. They continued the game by using a shovel 0:12:26.200 --> 0:12:29.080 handle as their bat for the rest of play. In 0:12:29.160 --> 0:12:33.920 eighteen eighty four, a woodworker named j. A. Bud Hillaric 0:12:34.440 --> 0:12:37.200 attended a baseball game to watch his home team that 0:12:37.240 --> 0:12:41.080 would be the Louisville Eclipse and hit her Pete Browning 0:12:41.160 --> 0:12:44.040 stepped up to the plate. Now when he swung, he 0:12:44.240 --> 0:12:48.040 connected with the baseball, but he broke his bat during play. 0:12:48.080 --> 0:12:52.600 That inspired Hilaric to invite Browning back to Hillary's woodworking shop, 0:12:53.040 --> 0:12:56.480 and he created a personalized bat for Browning. Browning went 0:12:56.520 --> 0:12:59.040 on to use that bat in a game the following day, 0:12:59.080 --> 0:13:03.120 and he got three hits. Apparently, Browning bragged to his 0:13:03.160 --> 0:13:07.080 fellow teammates about his new custom made bats and orders 0:13:07.120 --> 0:13:10.800 started pouring in. Hill Eric thus created a new brand 0:13:10.880 --> 0:13:14.880 of bats that's famous to this day, the Louisville Slugger. 0:13:15.440 --> 0:13:18.120 By the end of the nineteenth century, baseball was starting 0:13:18.160 --> 0:13:22.400 to really coalesce as a truly organized sport, which meant 0:13:22.520 --> 0:13:24.679 rules were being laid down as to what could and 0:13:24.720 --> 0:13:28.240 could not be used with bats. The basic rules stated 0:13:28.280 --> 0:13:30.680 bats had to be round, so you couldn't have any 0:13:30.720 --> 0:13:33.720 more flat or angled bats. You know, bats that that 0:13:33.880 --> 0:13:37.960 had flat surfaces around them, like maybe a hexagonal bat. 0:13:37.960 --> 0:13:40.000 You couldn't do that. They had to be rounded. They 0:13:40.040 --> 0:13:42.800 could be no greater than two and three quarter inches 0:13:42.960 --> 0:13:46.040 or six point nine centimeters in diameter. They could be 0:13:46.080 --> 0:13:48.640 no longer than forty two inches or about a meter 0:13:48.760 --> 0:13:52.000 in length, and they should be made entirely out of hardwood, 0:13:52.240 --> 0:13:54.760 though the handle could be wrapped in twine or some 0:13:54.840 --> 0:13:58.720 other material to aid in gripping. But they didn't have 0:13:58.800 --> 0:14:02.000 a limit on bat wait. Early bats were made out 0:14:02.000 --> 0:14:05.680 of hickory, but the trend moved towards using white ash 0:14:05.880 --> 0:14:08.560 as the wood of choice. It was a little bit 0:14:08.600 --> 0:14:12.400 more durable and lighter than hickory was. That is until 0:14:12.440 --> 0:14:15.679 about two thousand one, because that's when Barry Bonds used 0:14:15.720 --> 0:14:19.040 a maple bat to set a single season record of 0:14:19.120 --> 0:14:23.360 seventy three home runs, which made maple a popular choice 0:14:23.800 --> 0:14:26.400 because clearly it was the bat that did all the work. 0:14:26.560 --> 0:14:30.320 Although to be fair, different woods do perform in different ways, 0:14:30.360 --> 0:14:33.400 and I'll talk more about that later. Uh, there are 0:14:33.560 --> 0:14:38.840 actual differences that can affect bat performance, so we'll we'll 0:14:38.880 --> 0:14:41.960 cover it now. In fact, white ash, for example, is 0:14:42.320 --> 0:14:45.040 lighter than hickory, so it's easier to swing the bat 0:14:45.200 --> 0:14:51.280 faster or to adjust more easily two different pitches. Maple 0:14:51.400 --> 0:14:54.000 is more flexible than ash, so it creates kind of 0:14:54.000 --> 0:14:56.960 a whip like motion that can impart some extra force 0:14:57.040 --> 0:14:59.560 on a ball when you make contact. But maple can 0:14:59.600 --> 0:15:03.080 also shatter more readily. That has actually prompted Major League 0:15:03.120 --> 0:15:05.720 Baseball to put a ban on softer types of maple wood, 0:15:05.920 --> 0:15:07.920 and also requires bats to have a barrel of no 0:15:08.000 --> 0:15:10.920 more than two point six one or six point six 0:15:10.960 --> 0:15:13.960 centimeters in diameter, so, in other words, they have to 0:15:13.960 --> 0:15:17.160 be less thick now than they used to be in 0:15:17.280 --> 0:15:20.560 order to limit the bat designs because you were having 0:15:20.560 --> 0:15:23.360 more and more bats that had a disproportionately thin handle 0:15:23.400 --> 0:15:25.280 compared to the barrel. It really helps cut down on 0:15:25.320 --> 0:15:28.480 some of the weight, but that meant that the amount 0:15:28.560 --> 0:15:31.520 of force that would happen when a bat collided with 0:15:31.560 --> 0:15:34.360 a ball could sometimes be enough to shatter the bat, 0:15:34.440 --> 0:15:37.800 to snap the handle and send shards everywhere. Maple is 0:15:37.840 --> 0:15:41.120 particularly bad about this and that can be actually dangerous 0:15:41.160 --> 0:15:45.479 for people on the field, so there's been some limitations 0:15:45.560 --> 0:15:49.960 on the bat width in order to decrease the likelihood 0:15:49.960 --> 0:15:53.800 of that happening. These days, professional players have six different 0:15:53.840 --> 0:15:56.400 woods they can choose from for their bats. For Major 0:15:56.440 --> 0:16:01.600 League Baseball, they include white ash, sugar maple, true hickory, 0:16:01.800 --> 0:16:06.600 yellow birch, red oak, and Japanese ash. Most bats, however, 0:16:06.680 --> 0:16:09.520 are either sugar maple or white ash. So let's walk 0:16:09.520 --> 0:16:13.080 through the journey of making a Louisville Slugger white ash 0:16:13.240 --> 0:16:17.080 baseball bat, because the whole thing is pretty fascinating and 0:16:17.240 --> 0:16:19.960 there are differences. You can buy bats from local bat 0:16:20.000 --> 0:16:24.320 manufacturers and they tend to follow a very similar approach, 0:16:24.400 --> 0:16:27.880 but usually they have less automation. They have a lot 0:16:27.880 --> 0:16:31.840 more hand crafting going into their bats. But generally speaking, 0:16:31.960 --> 0:16:34.920 this is the process. You start with a white ash 0:16:35.080 --> 0:16:39.960 tree that's at least fifty years old, so it is 0:16:40.000 --> 0:16:42.320 the right stature for you to start off with. The 0:16:42.360 --> 0:16:45.840 white ash and Louisville Sluggers comes from special forests in 0:16:45.920 --> 0:16:49.000 New York and Pennsylvania. So you cut down the tree, 0:16:49.400 --> 0:16:53.200 you remove the branches, you saw, the trunks into logs 0:16:53.400 --> 0:16:55.600 and those logs need to be ten to sixteen ft 0:16:55.640 --> 0:16:58.120 long or about three to five meters, and then you 0:16:58.160 --> 0:17:00.560 load those logs onto a truck and take them to 0:17:00.640 --> 0:17:04.560 a mill. The wood passes an inspection, so you look 0:17:04.560 --> 0:17:07.600 at the wood. You're looking for any imperfections that would 0:17:07.640 --> 0:17:10.639 affect back quality, things like knots in the wood or 0:17:10.680 --> 0:17:13.760 any rotting or anything like that. The logs that pass 0:17:13.840 --> 0:17:18.359 inspection go through a hydraulic wedge. The hydraulic wedge cuts 0:17:18.400 --> 0:17:23.840 the logs into splits that are about forty uh wide. 0:17:23.880 --> 0:17:27.080 So the splits then go into a lathe, and a 0:17:27.200 --> 0:17:30.680 lathe is a device that rotates whatever you're working on 0:17:30.880 --> 0:17:33.679 about an access of rotation so that you can do 0:17:33.760 --> 0:17:37.639 some sort of operation on it. Um Usually lathes will 0:17:37.680 --> 0:17:42.040 turn things fairly rapidly, and it's a frequent tool in woodworking. 0:17:42.560 --> 0:17:46.160 Lathes have been around for ages. So old lathes were 0:17:46.240 --> 0:17:49.399 ones that used ropes and gears and a treadle like 0:17:49.560 --> 0:17:52.520 a foot pedal to operate, and you would press down 0:17:52.560 --> 0:17:54.560 on the foot pedal it would pull down on a 0:17:54.640 --> 0:17:58.560 rope that would turn some uh gears and that would 0:17:58.680 --> 0:18:01.080 rotate the lathe and you would just do that over 0:18:01.080 --> 0:18:03.680 and over again. You would just keep pedaling in order 0:18:03.720 --> 0:18:07.320 to continue the rotational motion of whatever it was you're 0:18:07.359 --> 0:18:09.560 working on, and you would be able to smooth out 0:18:09.800 --> 0:18:13.160 surfaces this way. These days, of course, we have lathes 0:18:13.200 --> 0:18:16.080 that are connected to motors. The motors will turn at 0:18:16.119 --> 0:18:18.800 a pretty high rpm so that you can work on 0:18:19.520 --> 0:18:22.560 uh the wood and very rapidly start to shape it. 0:18:22.680 --> 0:18:26.240 Now that's only part of a lay. The other part 0:18:26.440 --> 0:18:30.040 is whatever tools you're using to shave down the wood, 0:18:30.080 --> 0:18:32.720 and that might be handheld, it might be part of 0:18:32.760 --> 0:18:35.800 a lathe where you just place it in the right position. 0:18:35.840 --> 0:18:38.560 It might even be fully automatic. But this is the 0:18:38.720 --> 0:18:43.080 hard surface that presses against the wood and shaves off, 0:18:43.720 --> 0:18:46.919 uh the outer layers. So as the wood rotates, it 0:18:46.960 --> 0:18:50.600 gets shaved down further and further right. So with the 0:18:50.720 --> 0:18:54.080 splits you put them in the lathe. You turn the 0:18:54.320 --> 0:18:58.159 splits around and around and around. The lathe will start 0:18:58.200 --> 0:19:02.120 to smooth off the corners rough edges of these splits. 0:19:02.920 --> 0:19:06.639 And once you do that, you end up with a 0:19:06.760 --> 0:19:09.840 length of wood that's called a billet b I l 0:19:10.080 --> 0:19:13.560 l e T. And the billets go through another inspection process, 0:19:13.600 --> 0:19:16.720 including weighing to make sure that they are still appropriate 0:19:16.760 --> 0:19:20.800 for bats, and based upon how much they weigh, they're 0:19:20.800 --> 0:19:25.159 gonna go toward different models of bats. Some wood is 0:19:25.200 --> 0:19:27.600 going to be more dense than others, and that means 0:19:27.640 --> 0:19:29.560 it's going to be heavier than others, and that may 0:19:29.640 --> 0:19:31.959 mean that it's better for one type of bat than another. 0:19:32.359 --> 0:19:35.240 More on that in a second. Now, when you've got 0:19:35.240 --> 0:19:38.320 these billets, you're not even ready to start with the 0:19:38.359 --> 0:19:41.800 batmaking process yet. Nope, you've got to spend some time first. 0:19:42.160 --> 0:19:44.879 Typically you would coat both ends of the billets, the 0:19:45.440 --> 0:19:48.760 cut ends with a preservative to keep it from rotting 0:19:49.040 --> 0:19:54.000 or or otherwise deteriorating, and then you season the billets. 0:19:54.040 --> 0:19:57.439 Now by seasoning, i'm talking about drying them out so 0:19:57.520 --> 0:20:00.399 they're considered to be green wood at this stage because 0:20:00.440 --> 0:20:05.200 the billets still contain sap and gum inside the wood. 0:20:05.560 --> 0:20:10.320 So seasoning is the process of letting these billets dry 0:20:10.359 --> 0:20:12.560 out over a very long period of time so that 0:20:12.680 --> 0:20:15.919 sap and gum leech out of the wood over time. 0:20:16.480 --> 0:20:20.040 Usually this takes between six months and two years before 0:20:20.040 --> 0:20:22.960 you're ready to actually take the next step. One. Seasoned, 0:20:23.280 --> 0:20:26.440 the billets are weighed again. That helps determine which model 0:20:26.480 --> 0:20:29.479 a bat The billets might be used for bat models 0:20:29.520 --> 0:20:32.200 are based off of older bats that players have favored. 0:20:32.359 --> 0:20:35.240 So you design a bat players like it, you say, well, 0:20:35.280 --> 0:20:37.560 this is going to serve as a model for future bats. 0:20:37.560 --> 0:20:41.760 I'm gonna design more bats to try and replicate the 0:20:42.000 --> 0:20:46.439 same design that we've created here, which could be tricky 0:20:46.560 --> 0:20:50.080 because again, wood density might be different, So you might 0:20:50.160 --> 0:20:52.680 end up creating a bat that's the exact same physical 0:20:52.720 --> 0:20:57.959 dimensions but ways slightly different from and the model. Uh, 0:20:58.040 --> 0:21:01.879 there are different ways you can take two avoid that. 0:21:01.920 --> 0:21:03.720 I'll talk a little bit more about that in a second. 0:21:03.920 --> 0:21:07.520 But it's tough to do because wood is an organic material. 0:21:07.560 --> 0:21:11.119 It's not like you can produce it chemically to be 0:21:11.200 --> 0:21:14.440 exactly the same and just pour that into a mold 0:21:14.480 --> 0:21:17.919 and get the exact same bat time after time after time. 0:21:18.119 --> 0:21:21.240 With wood, you're dealing with nature, and nature does not 0:21:21.320 --> 0:21:24.600 always replicate things exactly. Now, when it comes time to 0:21:24.640 --> 0:21:26.840 make the bat, you put the billet in another lathe, 0:21:27.000 --> 0:21:30.000 not a big surprise. An operation like Louisville Slugger has 0:21:30.000 --> 0:21:32.600 automatic lathes that can cut a billet into the rough 0:21:32.680 --> 0:21:35.480 shape of a bat. So you put it in this lathe. 0:21:35.640 --> 0:21:37.960 It holds the billet by either end. To think of 0:21:37.960 --> 0:21:41.320 it like a spike that sticks into the ends of 0:21:41.359 --> 0:21:44.560 this billet, rotates it around and around super fast, and 0:21:44.640 --> 0:21:49.439 this automatic machine ends up shaving away all the parts 0:21:49.520 --> 0:21:53.160 of the billet that don't look like a rough bat shape. Now, 0:21:53.200 --> 0:21:56.320 even then, this is just the basic shape of a bat. 0:21:56.359 --> 0:22:00.520 It's not close to your final format. Next would UH 0:22:01.040 --> 0:22:06.720 use a a human operator called a bat turner to 0:22:06.840 --> 0:22:10.200 do all the final shaping, the fine tuning that will 0:22:10.240 --> 0:22:13.919 turn this basic bat shape into an actual model of 0:22:13.960 --> 0:22:16.520 a bat that you are are using as your reference points. 0:22:16.560 --> 0:22:21.159 So typically you would have a reference model of the 0:22:21.280 --> 0:22:25.360 type of bat you want to make nearby, typically mounted 0:22:25.440 --> 0:22:29.320 behind the lathe, and you would use tools like calipers 0:22:29.720 --> 0:22:34.520 to measure how wide the model is at specific reference points, 0:22:34.800 --> 0:22:37.280 and then you would continue to shave away at this 0:22:37.480 --> 0:22:41.679 bat shaped piece of wood until it matched those measurements. 0:22:42.119 --> 0:22:44.600 So you'd use the calipers and take a very precise 0:22:44.680 --> 0:22:47.359 measurement of say the base of the handle. Well, you 0:22:47.400 --> 0:22:49.320 want to make sure that you shave the wood away 0:22:49.720 --> 0:22:54.800 in your billet of wood until it's that same same diameter, 0:22:55.800 --> 0:22:57.359 and the same is true for the entire length of 0:22:57.359 --> 0:22:58.800 the bat. You want to make sure you get all 0:22:58.840 --> 0:23:02.040 the curves properly designed. You want to make sure that 0:23:02.520 --> 0:23:05.680 the barrel of the bat is the same diameter as 0:23:05.760 --> 0:23:10.840 the original model. So this is a pretty delicate approach. 0:23:11.040 --> 0:23:13.400 If someone who has a practiced hand at it can 0:23:13.440 --> 0:23:18.159 do it fairly quickly, but anyone else it looks like magic. 0:23:18.160 --> 0:23:21.320 I've watched a lot of videos of bat turners doing this, 0:23:21.920 --> 0:23:27.080 and to me, it is really stress inducing because I 0:23:27.119 --> 0:23:28.679 think of how easy it would be to make a 0:23:28.720 --> 0:23:31.000 mistake that would ruin the bat that you're working on, 0:23:31.520 --> 0:23:35.280 and you would have completely wasted a billet if that happened. 0:23:35.720 --> 0:23:38.760 But the folks who do this, they're very highly skilled, 0:23:39.320 --> 0:23:42.520 and they're they've done it hundreds of times, and so 0:23:42.640 --> 0:23:46.160 they do this very quickly and confidently in a way 0:23:46.200 --> 0:23:50.000 that kind of what I'm both impressed by and terrified by, honestly. 0:23:50.520 --> 0:23:54.359 And eventually you get to a point that the bat 0:23:54.400 --> 0:23:58.960 you're working on as resembles the model as closely as possible. Now, 0:23:59.000 --> 0:24:02.720