Baseball Bats: A New Hampshire Thing

Home runs and scoring were down in college baseball last year, thanks to new regulations requiring metal bats to perform more like wooden bats, which have a smaller sweet spot.

That was good news for one NH company. American Bat Co. in Allenstown which makes wooden bats. With the new rule, they expect business to double this year as more leagues follow the National Collegiate Athletic Association's lead.

A lot of leagues are going back to wood, says Gregg Bowen, co-owner of American Bat Co., which sold 500 bats last year, all made using wood from Highland Hardwoods in Brentwood.

The company provides bats to area leagues including the Danbury Westerners, a collegiate summer league in Connecticut, the NH Grizzlies and, starting this summer, the Granite State Baseball Association summer league, Bowen says.

What people don't realize is kids train with wood in the off season. We were selling bats to people using them in the off season. Now you are seeing a lot of leagues will turn back to wood because it is safer, he says, explaining as metal bats are hollow, they create a trampoline effect when the ball hits, causing the ball to travel farther and faster. Wooden bats are more true and require a good swing, Bowen says, to go farther and faster.

Bowen and his business partner, Chad Pelissier, both coach baseball and founded the company in 2008 after finding that players didn't have a good wooden bat to practice with. The company sells adult and youth bats, as well as fungo bats to hit grounders and popups during batting practice. Adult bats cost between $50 and $80, depending on whether they are made with ash or maple. Both men hace day jobs and feed the profits from making bats back into the fledgling company.

For more information, visit www.americanbatco.com.