Plain City Slugger

From the “things I did not know” department, there’s a guy making bats for big leaguers right here in my backyard:

“The thing I like about bats is, somewhere in the middle, you have the science part and the art part, and they meet there in the middle,” said Charley Trudeau, founder of Phoenix Bats, a baseball-bat manufacturer in Plain City, Ohio, with a growing list of big-league clients . . .

. . . As a new season approaches, more players than ever will swing Trudeau’s bats. Company general manager Seth Cramer estimated that Phoenix Bats will produce between 13,000 and 15,000 bats this year for players at every level of the game; “a few dozen” big-league players will use them, and “a half-dozen to a dozen” big-league players will use them exclusively.

“Already this year, we’re about 40 percent ahead of what we were doing in previous years,” Cramer said. A few feet away, a box of bats sat ready for shipment to Houston Astros shortstop Miguel Tejada.

It’s sad that Tejada doesn’t come up to Plain City personally to get his bats. I think it would be cool to run into him at the Der Dutchman salad bar.


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GBS
14 years ago

I’ve used a Phoenix bat while playing vintage base ball for the last several seasons, and I’ve been a very happy customer.  “Lefty” Trudeau and his staff are great to work with.

Craig, I highly suggest you take in a vintage game in Columbus this summer.  They have a big Ohio Cup festival every Labor Day weekend with four fields and even a couple of ladies’ teams.  It’s a blast.

Craig Calcaterra
14 years ago

GBS—thanks for the heads up.  The Ohio Historical Society has this little old-timey village here in which people dressed up, role-played, etc.  A few times a summer the Muffins (at least I think it was the Muffins) would play old-timey baseball.  Not sure if it was staged Globetrotters-style or if it was really competitive, but I enjoyed it.

I’ll have to check out the Ohio Cup.

GBS
14 years ago

Yep, it’s the Muffins – and the Columbus Capitals – and the games are competitive.  (Or at least that’s the plan.  Occasionally you’ll have a mismatch.)  Here’s a link to their ‘09 schedule:

http://ohsweb.ohiohistory.org/places/c11/c11-01a.shtml

I really miss playing, but I moved to Atlanta a couple years ago, and there are no teams here.  I’m hoping to change that this summer.