Rays/MLB

This bat man knows his knocks on wood

Batter 'bings,' and not 'bongs,' are music to the ears of the batmaker to the would-be stars.

By SCOTT PURKS
Published July 16, 2006

CAPE COD, Mass. - Right away it's apparent there is something curious, something, perhaps, bizarre about Tom Bednark.

Smell?

Guy smells like wood.

"Ash and maple," he said.

Smells good. But no, this is way beyond smell.

Perhaps it's the conviction regarding his one-man business, the 14-year-old Barnstable Bat Co. He has no trouble telling anyone: "I'm the best batmaker there is, because I know wood."

How does one "know wood?"

"I love wood," he said. "I've made everything you can imagine out of wood with every kind of wood imaginable.

"Sometimes I'll see a piece of wood and I can't stand it. I have to have it! This piece of wood won't be for a bat but for anything I might think I might make, most of which I've probably already made at least once."

Guitar. Violin. Furniture. Boat. Model airplane. Sculpture. House. Coffin.

Coffin?

"I had this old Scotsman who fought in World War I, and he asked me to build him a pine box coffin like the ones his comrades were buried in during the war," Bednark said. "The guy said, 'I don't plan to use it for another 10 or 12 years, but I'd like you to build it now.' "

Bednark did.

Eight years later, the Scotsman used it.

But ... what's the point?

"The point is," Bednark said, "I can look and hold and feel a piece of wood and know it."

It's hard. Solid. Dry. Moist. Young. Old. It will make a great guitar, or a boat, or, most important to his livelihood, a bat.

"I personally check out every piece of wood before I make it into a bat," Bednark said. "I make sure it's the best I can get. That's why when you pick up a Barnstable Bat you know it's a quality product."

Bednark picked up a bat in his store and bopped the barrel with the base of his palm. "Bong, bong." He picked up another and bopped it. "Bing, bing."

The "bing," he explained, means the bat is harder, thus better.

"This bat (the one with the 'bing')," he said, "may hit the ball 20 to 30 feet farther than that one (the one with the 'bong.')"

He tells this to every Cape Cod League player - almost the entire league that during the season walks through the office door attached to his house, a wooden house - "Of course!" - he built in the forest outside Barnstable on the western edge of the Cape.

A hundred feet behind his house is his 1,000-square-foot shop, which he built out of wood - "Of course!" - to make in a year 10,000 bats ($55 to $70 apiece), all of which he makes on a series of loud machines.

He could make more but, he says: "I don't want to. If you make more bats, you have to hire more people and you have more hassle. I don't like a lot of hassle."

Which is part of the reason Bednark no longer makes bats for major league players, which he did in the 1990s. He said he didn't want to mix with the cutthroat competition, nor did he want to pay "the $65,000 for administration and insurance," required to sell bats in Major League Baseball.

As it is, he sells bats to 48 countries. To Cape players he sells every summer about 500 bats, many custom made to barrel, handle widths, shapes and weights. Bednark engraves the players' names on the bats.

Chatham Athletics' manager John Schiffner loves Bednark's bats because of the quality and personal touch and because Bednark is quick to deliver.

"I can call Tom that morning and say I need X amount of X designs, and he'll show up before game time with the entire load, everything perfect," Schiffner said. "This is no knock on Louisville Slugger, but you just don't get that speed and care with Louisville Slugger. Tom has that advantage over Louisville because he's right up the road."

Schiffner also said he just plain likes the guy.

"When I got married, Tom was there with this big, beautiful bat and a piece of rope tied in a knot attached to it," Schiffner said. "On the bat was engraved, 'John and Martha tied the knot August 16, 1997.'

"See, Tom Bednark is one of the Cape Cod League family, a part of the tradition."

[Last modified July 16, 2006, 06:26:08]