What started as a singular wood bat for his son led to the most popular and respected bat company in our country. Here's Jack Marucci with the story of how he got from point A to point B.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
And we returned to our American stories. Up next, a
story from Jack Marucci. Jack is the director of Performance
in Louisiana State University's Athletic department, but also the founder
of Marucci Sports, a company known for its baseball bats.
Here's Jack with a story of how his company came
to be. Let's get into it.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
You know, we're from a coal mining town, pretty humble beginnings.
We're from a pretty immigrant family. My mom was eleven
when she came from Spain and my grandfather's from Italy,
so we're half Spanish, half Italian, and that was the
makeup of most of the people we grew up with. Everybody.
It was pretty ethic, you know. We went to the
(00:56):
Italian church and Saint Teresa's and we thought that's how
it was everywhere. So my mom, her dad came over
to be a coal miner, and we went back to
see her where she grew up. It was like it
was like San Diego, I'm going, why would you leave
this place? They lived right by the oach. But I
(01:18):
guess times are so bad in the Civil War. The
economy was bad and the war's breaking out. This was
like in the early forties. But her dad comes over
here right before the war, and he tried to say money,
bring the family up, but he can't get back and forth.
So my mom didn't see him until eleven years, until
he could save up the money. So she was eleven
the first time she saw her dad. Then my dad's side,
(01:41):
my grandfather came over when he was fifteen. Then he
got deported because you had to be sixteen. You could
see it on the Ellis Island report. We found it.
Somehow he got through all that and they said, well
you're only fifteen, So he had to go all the
way back. You know, they were afraid. He was afraid
they were gonna make him a priest. I want to
become a priest. So he started a restaurant. It was
(02:03):
called Shady Side End. It was built from nothing. It
was just a little deli and they built it into
a place where bank which could set up to six
seven hundred people. I mean, it's it just kept growing,
you know. It was the same thing. And that's when
I first probably came across the first professional ethics because
we used to check coats. Me and my brother, we're
(02:23):
like ten years old and you're checking coats man and
they're giving you these big coats and which stay up late.
We're so tired. But that's the first time my Willy
Stargel came in, you know, with the Pittsburgh Pirates, and
we saw his coat and we're going, hey, let's check
in his pockets. We weren't looking for money, but we
found a business card with the Willis Stargels star. We thought,
you know, you know, so we used to get tips.
(02:44):
You know, they'd give you a buck, you know you
could make if it's one hundred coachs, you're making a
hundred bucks. You know, you split it. It's fifty bucks each.
It's not bad for a ten year old. My dad
end up being the butcher, did the bartending, so we
came up pretty much. You know. We had the one
(03:07):
shower in the house. All three boys slept in the
one room. Then then my sister. So you know, it
teaches you a good work ethic. Obviously, Western Pennsylvania is
an area that it's blue collar and you know you're
gonna learn things that you don't think it's going to
pay off down the road. You know, you take that
typing class back then and now everything's computers. You learn
(03:28):
how to type, then you take a wood shop class
that you learn how to use a woodlathe, you know,
which down the road would become a you know, something
that I could learn to to use to my advantage
and uh, you know, help develop a bet for my son.
You never know what's going to influence you. So my
(03:52):
son was he's about seventy years old, Geno, and we're
watching We used to watch a lot of baseball and
I didn't play old videos. Robertoical many so that became
his guy, and he wors twenty one today. He wore
it was a little league. He got back into twenty
one because of Berto kal Mini. So again, Western Pennsylvania
were a little bit obsessed, of course, and we're gonna
(04:13):
force them to elect the Pirates and the Steelers and
the Penguins. So that's just part of what we do.
And he he liked Bonds as bat. He saw the
black and two tone and wood batty goes bad. I
like that, man, I wanna play little wood bat. That's
different because wood bats weren't even mentioned back then. Now
you got wood bat tournaments and everyone likes the wood beat.
(04:34):
So I ended up calling all these bat companies, none
of them, they all had stock bats no more small
enough or short enough. Really, it was really the size
everybody maybe was an inch off. I needed a twenty
seven and they only stopped at twenty nine or stopped
at twenty eight. So I started looking around and there
was some old bats store here at LSU. I'm looking
(04:56):
at him, and I said, all right. Then we had
a quarterback, Matt. I start talking to Matt. Matt played
for the Cubs for three years, and uh, I said, Matt,
I'm thinking about making him back for my son. You
mind if I'm gonna make one, and I want I'm
gonna bring it in since you played, tell me what
we need to do to make this thing tapered right?
(05:16):
And so I made the first one. I have it
in my office today and uh, it top heavy, and
you know, I use electrical tape to do whatever, and
I carved in. I think that one was the Geno
crusher and I put his school he was at. That
was my first one. So the next one I start making,
(05:37):
I got a lot better. And that was the Geno
Slugger was I think the next one. You know. So
he starts hitting with him and uh, and he he
had the DNA to hit you know, he had the
good eyesight. He was a front eyed, dominant kid, and
he was he was pretty good. So he starts getting
(05:58):
a little leg. He's using one back. Okay, this is different,
but he's he's one of the best hitters. So everybody
on the team goes, well, if he's hitting good with
that bat, I want one with my name, my kid's
name on it. So that's when I formed, Okay, we'll
form a little company, Merchy bat Company. So I bought
a shed. I bought it from Canada. It was a
Cedar shed, and I told the guy what I wanted
(06:22):
because I thought Cedar's gonna last longer in this weather,
the mildew, the you know, it's not gonna rot. I said,
I want doors in the front, in the back, and
he goes, why do you want that? I said, have
you ever lived in Louisiana? I said, it's like living
on the equator. I said, I need an airflow. So
I put a fan in there. And that was my
bat shop. That was two thousand and two. I always
(06:45):
joke around. I said, saving was a little stressful, so
it was a nice stress relief to get away from.
So after football, I'd spend nights and the neighbor come over.
What are you doing? There's saldust everywhere. I go make
him back. He goes, you're making bats. He goes, give
me a cop. You know, everyone as soon as they
saw it and they go, I want one. So I
(07:07):
started twenty five bucks. I remember the wood cost probably fifteen.
Because money was never a thing. I felt bad. I
felt bad that I was gonna even charge somebody for it.
Then I said, well, I'd better start charging, because you know,
the first major league bat was EDWARDO. Perez. I was
(07:29):
going up for an athletic trainer's convention and we're catching up,
and I was gonna go to the Cardinals game, and
I told him what I was doing. He goes, he goes,
bring me one up, and he gave me a model,
which was a common model. Everything was based off of
Louisville Slugger model. So ce two forty three. He said,
all right, I think I can find one in the
pile because LSU had some wood bats laying around and
I found one that I so I got the hanger
(07:50):
and I would hang it on the hangar and I
would do it by pheel. I would cut the bat.
I got pretty good by that, by aye, and feel
I made him. I think I made him too, And
think what's he going to do with these? Maybe just
gonna put it up in his house? Or I thought
it was a neat than a major league guy, you know.
(08:11):
So he meets me in front of the hotel and
he and he pulls out of the box and his
eyes light up and he goes, Man, he goes, I'm
going to use this tonight. I said, what I said,
This thing's going to explode, Eddie. I said, I seen
seven and eight year old swing this. I said, you're
going to swing this this thing, I said. He goes,
(08:32):
I'm gonna sneak it in because I want license. You know,
the logos, this big logo. There's all these regulations which
you find out and uh, he goes, I tell you what,
I want you to come down for batting practice, meet
some guys. I said, okay.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
And you've been listening to Jack Marucci tell the story
of how his bat company came to be the child
of immigrants who came from Spain and Italy and who
basically learned the lessons of life in a working class
town in western Pennsylvania finds himself at Louisiana State University
being the strength coach back when a guy named Nick
Saban was coaching their sec powerhouse squad. And to Welt
(09:13):
it just get some time away. He just started making bats,
first for his son and pretty soon from major league
baseball player. What happens next? More of Jack Mrucci's story
here on our American Stories and we continue with our
(09:40):
American stories and with the story of Jack Mrucci and
if you're a ballplayer, a baseball player, that is the
story of Marucci bats who came on to challenge the
almighty Louisville Slugger and from a shack in his home
in Louisiana.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
So he gets me down there and he goes, this
bat is unbelievable. He goes, I use it in the
cad Then he introduces me to Barry Larkin. He's playing
for the Rats. And I got a picture of Larkin
hold this bat. And he says, I tell you what
we're playing in Houston. I want you to make any one.
I said, all right, I'll like you one. So me
(10:22):
and my son go to Houston and he says, get
there early for batting practice. He wants you to bring
the bat. So I'm walking in the stadium with a bat.
I gave it to my son. I go here, Genna,
you take it. He was only nine at the time,
and I said, they won't yell at you. I said,
I'm not going to bring a bat in the stadium.
(10:44):
So he's bringing it in and we walk all the
way down. They're taking batting practice and there's people around
in the stands. I don't know what to do this
first time, you know, I've done this, actually brought a
bat to a game. And Larkin kind of sees us.
He gets his thumbs up, and everyone behind us is going, oh,
that's funny. He recognize. You know. They're all like a
(11:05):
maze that because they're all trying to get autographs and
there's people everywhere. We're inna stands with their bells right
behind the dugout. So the bat boy comes over. We
hand a bat over to him. Everyone's going, wow, how's
he getting him to sign that bat? They're all going,
how's he getting a sign? We're trying to get all
of our They're kind of getting mad. So the batboy
takes it right over to Larkin. Larkin starts putting on
(11:26):
the call of modus stick, the tackiness and like pine
tart up and everyone starts going, wait a minute, he's
gonna hit with that bat. I mean, we just brought
it to him. It's a bare bat. He starts taking
bep with so we're watching the game. His second at bat,
he was the first guy to get a hit with
it up the middle. That's big time. And to me,
(11:46):
I said, that was it. I mean, I'm this thing
was in my backyard a couple of days ago, and
this guy's you a major league basebackey. I said, oh
my god, I mean, this is ridiculous. That was probably
one of the best ever and still probably one of
the best moments ever. Word a prez. I can't say
enough good things about him. He's one of the best
human beings. He helped the company more than anybody because
(12:07):
he talked to all these players and he's showing them
and I'm sending them more bats, and he's sneaking in
the game. He's leaving me voicemails. Man I hit Alina
against No Mo, and I mean it was just the
excitement of it was like Contraband. You know, we're sending
Contraband up there and he goes, you're gonna get a
(12:29):
call from Manny Ramirez. I said, okay. So I get
a call from Manny Ramrez. He goes, I need some
bats for the playoff run. I go again, you're gonna
be in the playoffs. You can't use these bats. He goes, No,
he wants and I talked to him about it. He
saw mine. I said, okay, So Manny calls. I said, well, Manny,
we're about to take off. We're about to play Georgia.
(12:51):
And said we're getting on a flight and I'm cutting
them off. And I said, let me get back and
I'll cut him. So I spent three nights making bats.
I made three bats for him, and I said, maybe
maybe I'll use them for batting practice or whatever. I
don't know. So I put a model number on it.
It's called a CB twenty four, and I send it
(13:12):
up to him, and Kevin Malar saw him. He got
all excited about him. Well, so this is two thousand
and four. And I got pretty good by then making
him and the finish. I was hand doing everything, putting
a nice in me. It looked shiny, look like furniture.
That's what Edward O President Hill said. It looks like furniture.
So fast forward a couple of years ago. I saw
(13:34):
Orlando Cabrera on that same team, and why he's significant.
I'm watching the game and Orlando Cabrera is using these
bats in this playoff game. So I asked him. I
never talked to Orlando about it. He used Manny's bats
I sent him. I said, what's you afraid you're gonna
get in trouble? He goes, no, He goes, let me
tell you something. I hit like three seventy in that series,
(13:57):
and those bats, that ball was coming off. He goes,
I'm remember like it was yesterday. So this was two
years ago. I'm talking to about that two thousand and
four playoff and he goes, I remember those bats like
it was yesterday. He goes, you know, we put the
tape on the bottom kind of flared out, and the
other one goes, I wanted a little thinner handle, so
I got the trainer scissors and I shaved the handle down,
made it thinner, and he goes, I always wanted to know.
(14:19):
I didn't know what company was. I wanted to order more,
but never heard of it. I didn't even know what
this was. And he goes, that model number that CB.
I said, well, let me tell you something. Somebody gave
me a tip. About five six months after that series,
they were on eBay. I found two of them. I said,
I have him in my office. I bought them back.
I didn't tell them who I was. I had those
(14:39):
two bats that you hit with in the playoffs. You know,
you never know how they get out of the clubhouse.
I said, you know what the CB stood for. He
goes no, I said, cursebuster. I put CB to break
the cur I said, I put the cursebuster of the Yankees.
And that's when the Red Sox were down three games
and they came back and they won the World Series.
And I have those bats in my office. It's just
(15:01):
it's one of those things you just never know. You know,
it's start getting bigger the business. I always want him
to order small mouths because I had to cut them
at the time, and I was getting tendonitis. I swear
to I got bad. It's the first time I had epicondolitis.
And then then we got more automated. Obviously, but we
were trying to turn down business and people are one
(15:22):
of them. The next big player would be Carlos Beltran,
Carlos Beltran, and we end up having a whole met
team from Jose Reyes, Beltran, Laduka, you name it. David
Wright and all those people in the division saw those bats.
Those guys are hitting well. He would tell everybody that
these bats are unbelieable. So at the time, you know,
(15:45):
he goes, he ordered a half dozen. So he orders
the bats, we ship them out. I get a phone
call from Jack. He only sent me five bats. I
ordered six. I said, I know, because what do you
mean you know? I said, do you underst and that
I was trying to get you the six bat? I
cut like ten to twelve bats. They weren't the quality
(16:06):
I wanted. In silence, he goes, that is unbelievable. So
he goes, you're not. You don't make like batting practice bats.
You just don't feel it. No, what do you mean
batting practice bats. I'm not gonna mention companies, but it
was Louisville and Rawlings basically, I was it. I mean
there's other companies, Cooper companies that he was using. Says,
you know, I only could get He going to use
(16:27):
four to five bats out of the dozen. He felt
the other ones were subpar. That's how they did it.
So being naive and thinking, I'm just gonna give you
the best quality, and he loved it. It was the
right thing to do to make it look right. You know,
there was the paint was gonna look good, the detail
and the stamping and the knob, you know, I would
(16:49):
I would stamp in the player's number or stamping, so
all that detail was in there when it was made,
like I'm born on it. I mean, no one had that.
Everyone was just mass producing bats. You know, these guys,
that's their living you know. Albert once told me goes,
you know, I love a lot of things in life.
You know, I love my wife, you know I love
my bats. I love my kids. Maybe not sometimes in
(17:11):
that order. But you know you're joking because their bats
are livelihood. So no one was making bats like that
for these guys. You would think they would be. He
coined the frame every bat's a gamer, So every bat's
a gamer. Yeah. So I always told people, you know,
we were always chasing the quality, and you're not going
to chase the dollar. You're not gonna chase that money.
(17:32):
Chase the quality of the stuff will come. So that's
spread like wildfire. So the word of mouth was so powerful,
and baseball is a close knit community and that's where
that that really took to another level. We became the
number one bat company probably about two and a half
years ago. That's who slur and by a pretty large
(17:54):
margin now. But you know, you're in sport and probably
the things that you do here all the time, it
is a game of inches. And if those companies made
that bat one inch longer, I wouldn't have probably made
bats because they would have made a bat for my
son and I would have been it. But one inch
dictated to do something and and uh, you know it's
(18:19):
it's and it's you think about this also, it's the
last sport that has used a wooden instrument. Golf has
gotten away from wood, lacrosse, tennis used to use tennis,
wood rackets, hockey, and you know, so the purity of
it allows somebody to to do what we were able
(18:40):
to do. And it's created jobs probably over close to
one hundred jobs, eighty jobs for people, you know, just
because of a wood shop class. So you know, there's
there's a lot that humbles you if you look at
that stuff. You know, you can go to an airport.
(19:01):
And you know, there was a little kid. Uh. I
was flying back from home from Pennsylvania and I was
layover in uh Charlotte Airport, and the kid had the
name on his his shirt and he had the bag
and he was sitting next to me at the we
were waiting. I said, I said, those bats aren't any good.
(19:23):
Why are you wearing those bats? I said, Louisville is
a lot better. And he's getting all mad at me.
And he's getting mad, I said, I said, I can't
pronounce that name. I said, I wouldn't use that stuff.
I said, Louisville's much better. And his grand he was
there flying with his grandfather's grandfather says, no, he loves
those bats now. And uh, you know, so I found
out they're coming. They were coming down for a baseball
(19:45):
camp at l s U. You know, so and so
I shared a story with him and I had him
come over to the office and show him all this stuff.
It was. It was. It was pretty fun.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
And a terrific job on the p reduction and editing
by our own Monte Montgomery. The Story of Imagination, the
Story of problem solving, and the Story of Innovation. Jack
Marucci's story and Marucci sports story here on our American stories.
And we returned to our American stories. Up next, a
story from Jack Marucci. Jack is the director of Performance
in Louisiana State University's Athletic department, but also the founder
of Marucci Sports, a company known for its baseball bats.
Here's Jack with a story of how his company came
to be. Let's get into it.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
You know, we're from a coal mining town, pretty humble beginnings.
We're from a pretty immigrant family. My mom was eleven
when she came from Spain and my grandfather's from Italy,
so we're half Spanish, half Italian, and that was the
makeup of most of the people we grew up with. Everybody.
It was pretty ethic, you know. We went to the
(00:56):
Italian church and Saint Teresa's and we thought that's how
it was everywhere. So my mom, her dad came over
to be a coal miner, and we went back to
see her where she grew up. It was like it
was like San Diego, I'm going, why would you leave
this place? They lived right by the oach. But I
(01:18):
guess times are so bad in the Civil War. The
economy was bad and the war's breaking out. This was
like in the early forties. But her dad comes over
here right before the war, and he tried to say money,
bring the family up, but he can't get back and forth.
So my mom didn't see him until eleven years, until
he could save up the money. So she was eleven
the first time she saw her dad. Then my dad's side,
(01:41):
my grandfather came over when he was fifteen. Then he
got deported because you had to be sixteen. You could
see it on the Ellis Island report. We found it.
Somehow he got through all that and they said, well
you're only fifteen, So he had to go all the
way back. You know, they were afraid. He was afraid
they were gonna make him a priest. I want to
become a priest. So he started a restaurant. It was
(02:03):
called Shady Side End. It was built from nothing. It
was just a little deli and they built it into
a place where bank which could set up to six
seven hundred people. I mean, it's it just kept growing,
you know. It was the same thing. And that's when
I first probably came across the first professional ethics because
we used to check coats. Me and my brother, we're
(02:23):
like ten years old and you're checking coats man and
they're giving you these big coats and which stay up late.
We're so tired. But that's the first time my Willy
Stargel came in, you know, with the Pittsburgh Pirates, and
we saw his coat and we're going, hey, let's check
in his pockets. We weren't looking for money, but we
found a business card with the Willis Stargels star. We thought,
you know, you know, so we used to get tips.
(02:44):
You know, they'd give you a buck, you know you
could make if it's one hundred coachs, you're making a
hundred bucks. You know, you split it. It's fifty bucks each.
It's not bad for a ten year old. My dad
end up being the butcher, did the bartending, so we
came up pretty much. You know. We had the one
(03:07):
shower in the house. All three boys slept in the
one room. Then then my sister. So you know, it
teaches you a good work ethic. Obviously, Western Pennsylvania is
an area that it's blue collar and you know you're
gonna learn things that you don't think it's going to
pay off down the road. You know, you take that
typing class back then and now everything's computers. You learn
(03:28):
how to type, then you take a wood shop class
that you learn how to use a woodlathe, you know,
which down the road would become a you know, something
that I could learn to to use to my advantage
and uh, you know, help develop a bet for my son.
You never know what's going to influence you. So my
(03:52):
son was he's about seventy years old, Geno, and we're
watching We used to watch a lot of baseball and
I didn't play old videos. Robertoical many so that became
his guy, and he wors twenty one today. He wore
it was a little league. He got back into twenty
one because of Berto kal Mini. So again, Western Pennsylvania
were a little bit obsessed, of course, and we're gonna
(04:13):
force them to elect the Pirates and the Steelers and
the Penguins. So that's just part of what we do.
And he he liked Bonds as bat. He saw the
black and two tone and wood batty goes bad. I
like that, man, I wanna play little wood bat. That's
different because wood bats weren't even mentioned back then. Now
you got wood bat tournaments and everyone likes the wood beat.
(04:34):
So I ended up calling all these bat companies, none
of them, they all had stock bats no more small
enough or short enough. Really, it was really the size
everybody maybe was an inch off. I needed a twenty
seven and they only stopped at twenty nine or stopped
at twenty eight. So I started looking around and there
was some old bats store here at LSU. I'm looking
(04:56):
at him, and I said, all right. Then we had
a quarterback, Matt. I start talking to Matt. Matt played
for the Cubs for three years, and uh, I said, Matt,
I'm thinking about making him back for my son. You
mind if I'm gonna make one, and I want I'm
gonna bring it in since you played, tell me what
we need to do to make this thing tapered right?
(05:16):
And so I made the first one. I have it
in my office today and uh, it top heavy, and
you know, I use electrical tape to do whatever, and
I carved in. I think that one was the Geno
crusher and I put his school he was at. That
was my first one. So the next one I start making,
(05:37):
I got a lot better. And that was the Geno
Slugger was I think the next one. You know. So
he starts hitting with him and uh, and he he
had the DNA to hit you know, he had the
good eyesight. He was a front eyed, dominant kid, and
he was he was pretty good. So he starts getting
(05:58):
a little leg. He's using one back. Okay, this is different,
but he's he's one of the best hitters. So everybody
on the team goes, well, if he's hitting good with
that bat, I want one with my name, my kid's
name on it. So that's when I formed, Okay, we'll
form a little company, Merchy bat Company. So I bought
a shed. I bought it from Canada. It was a
Cedar shed, and I told the guy what I wanted
(06:22):
because I thought Cedar's gonna last longer in this weather,
the mildew, the you know, it's not gonna rot. I said,
I want doors in the front, in the back, and
he goes, why do you want that? I said, have
you ever lived in Louisiana? I said, it's like living
on the equator. I said, I need an airflow. So
I put a fan in there. And that was my
bat shop. That was two thousand and two. I always
(06:45):
joke around. I said, saving was a little stressful, so
it was a nice stress relief to get away from.
So after football, I'd spend nights and the neighbor come over.
What are you doing? There's saldust everywhere. I go make
him back. He goes, you're making bats. He goes, give
me a cop. You know, everyone as soon as they
saw it and they go, I want one. So I
(07:07):
started twenty five bucks. I remember the wood cost probably fifteen.
Because money was never a thing. I felt bad. I
felt bad that I was gonna even charge somebody for it.
Then I said, well, I'd better start charging, because you know,
the first major league bat was EDWARDO. Perez. I was
(07:29):
going up for an athletic trainer's convention and we're catching up,
and I was gonna go to the Cardinals game, and
I told him what I was doing. He goes, he goes,
bring me one up, and he gave me a model,
which was a common model. Everything was based off of
Louisville Slugger model. So ce two forty three. He said,
all right, I think I can find one in the
pile because LSU had some wood bats laying around and
I found one that I so I got the hanger
(07:50):
and I would hang it on the hangar and I
would do it by pheel. I would cut the bat.
I got pretty good by that, by aye, and feel
I made him. I think I made him too, And
think what's he going to do with these? Maybe just
gonna put it up in his house? Or I thought
it was a neat than a major league guy, you know.
(08:11):
So he meets me in front of the hotel and
he and he pulls out of the box and his
eyes light up and he goes, Man, he goes, I'm
going to use this tonight. I said, what I said,
This thing's going to explode, Eddie. I said, I seen
seven and eight year old swing this. I said, you're
going to swing this this thing, I said. He goes,
(08:32):
I'm gonna sneak it in because I want license. You know,
the logos, this big logo. There's all these regulations which
you find out and uh, he goes, I tell you what,
I want you to come down for batting practice, meet
some guys. I said, okay.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
And you've been listening to Jack Marucci tell the story
of how his bat company came to be the child
of immigrants who came from Spain and Italy and who
basically learned the lessons of life in a working class
town in western Pennsylvania finds himself at Louisiana State University
being the strength coach back when a guy named Nick
Saban was coaching their sec powerhouse squad. And to Welt
(09:13):
it just get some time away. He just started making bats,
first for his son and pretty soon from major league
baseball player. What happens next? More of Jack Mrucci's story
here on our American Stories and we continue with our
(09:40):
American stories and with the story of Jack Mrucci and
if you're a ballplayer, a baseball player, that is the
story of Marucci bats who came on to challenge the
almighty Louisville Slugger and from a shack in his home
in Louisiana.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
So he gets me down there and he goes, this
bat is unbelievable. He goes, I use it in the
cad Then he introduces me to Barry Larkin. He's playing
for the Rats. And I got a picture of Larkin
hold this bat. And he says, I tell you what
we're playing in Houston. I want you to make any one.
I said, all right, I'll like you one. So me
(10:22):
and my son go to Houston and he says, get
there early for batting practice. He wants you to bring
the bat. So I'm walking in the stadium with a bat.
I gave it to my son. I go here, Genna,
you take it. He was only nine at the time,
and I said, they won't yell at you. I said,
I'm not going to bring a bat in the stadium.
(10:44):
So he's bringing it in and we walk all the
way down. They're taking batting practice and there's people around
in the stands. I don't know what to do this
first time, you know, I've done this, actually brought a
bat to a game. And Larkin kind of sees us.
He gets his thumbs up, and everyone behind us is going, oh,
that's funny. He recognize. You know. They're all like a
(11:05):
maze that because they're all trying to get autographs and
there's people everywhere. We're inna stands with their bells right
behind the dugout. So the bat boy comes over. We
hand a bat over to him. Everyone's going, wow, how's
he getting him to sign that bat? They're all going,
how's he getting a sign? We're trying to get all
of our They're kind of getting mad. So the batboy
takes it right over to Larkin. Larkin starts putting on
(11:26):
the call of modus stick, the tackiness and like pine
tart up and everyone starts going, wait a minute, he's
gonna hit with that bat. I mean, we just brought
it to him. It's a bare bat. He starts taking
bep with so we're watching the game. His second at bat,
he was the first guy to get a hit with
it up the middle. That's big time. And to me,
(11:46):
I said, that was it. I mean, I'm this thing
was in my backyard a couple of days ago, and
this guy's you a major league basebackey. I said, oh
my god, I mean, this is ridiculous. That was probably
one of the best ever and still probably one of
the best moments ever. Word a prez. I can't say
enough good things about him. He's one of the best
human beings. He helped the company more than anybody because
(12:07):
he talked to all these players and he's showing them
and I'm sending them more bats, and he's sneaking in
the game. He's leaving me voicemails. Man I hit Alina
against No Mo, and I mean it was just the
excitement of it was like Contraband. You know, we're sending
Contraband up there and he goes, you're gonna get a
(12:29):
call from Manny Ramirez. I said, okay. So I get
a call from Manny Ramrez. He goes, I need some
bats for the playoff run. I go again, you're gonna
be in the playoffs. You can't use these bats. He goes, No,
he wants and I talked to him about it. He
saw mine. I said, okay, So Manny calls. I said, well, Manny,
we're about to take off. We're about to play Georgia.
(12:51):
And said we're getting on a flight and I'm cutting
them off. And I said, let me get back and
I'll cut him. So I spent three nights making bats.
I made three bats for him, and I said, maybe
maybe I'll use them for batting practice or whatever. I
don't know. So I put a model number on it.
It's called a CB twenty four, and I send it
(13:12):
up to him, and Kevin Malar saw him. He got
all excited about him. Well, so this is two thousand
and four. And I got pretty good by then making
him and the finish. I was hand doing everything, putting
a nice in me. It looked shiny, look like furniture.
That's what Edward O President Hill said. It looks like furniture.
So fast forward a couple of years ago. I saw
(13:34):
Orlando Cabrera on that same team, and why he's significant.
I'm watching the game and Orlando Cabrera is using these
bats in this playoff game. So I asked him. I
never talked to Orlando about it. He used Manny's bats
I sent him. I said, what's you afraid you're gonna
get in trouble? He goes, no, He goes, let me
tell you something. I hit like three seventy in that series,
(13:57):
and those bats, that ball was coming off. He goes,
I'm remember like it was yesterday. So this was two
years ago. I'm talking to about that two thousand and
four playoff and he goes, I remember those bats like
it was yesterday. He goes, you know, we put the
tape on the bottom kind of flared out, and the
other one goes, I wanted a little thinner handle, so
I got the trainer scissors and I shaved the handle down,
made it thinner, and he goes, I always wanted to know.
(14:19):
I didn't know what company was. I wanted to order more,
but never heard of it. I didn't even know what
this was. And he goes, that model number that CB.
I said, well, let me tell you something. Somebody gave
me a tip. About five six months after that series,
they were on eBay. I found two of them. I said,
I have him in my office. I bought them back.
I didn't tell them who I was. I had those
(14:39):
two bats that you hit with in the playoffs. You know,
you never know how they get out of the clubhouse.
I said, you know what the CB stood for. He
goes no, I said, cursebuster. I put CB to break
the cur I said, I put the cursebuster of the Yankees.
And that's when the Red Sox were down three games
and they came back and they won the World Series.
And I have those bats in my office. It's just
(15:01):
it's one of those things you just never know. You know,
it's start getting bigger the business. I always want him
to order small mouths because I had to cut them
at the time, and I was getting tendonitis. I swear
to I got bad. It's the first time I had epicondolitis.
And then then we got more automated. Obviously, but we
were trying to turn down business and people are one
(15:22):
of them. The next big player would be Carlos Beltran,
Carlos Beltran, and we end up having a whole met
team from Jose Reyes, Beltran, Laduka, you name it. David
Wright and all those people in the division saw those bats.
Those guys are hitting well. He would tell everybody that
these bats are unbelieable. So at the time, you know,
(15:45):
he goes, he ordered a half dozen. So he orders
the bats, we ship them out. I get a phone
call from Jack. He only sent me five bats. I
ordered six. I said, I know, because what do you
mean you know? I said, do you underst and that
I was trying to get you the six bat? I
cut like ten to twelve bats. They weren't the quality
(16:06):
I wanted. In silence, he goes, that is unbelievable. So
he goes, you're not. You don't make like batting practice bats.
You just don't feel it. No, what do you mean
batting practice bats. I'm not gonna mention companies, but it
was Louisville and Rawlings basically, I was it. I mean
there's other companies, Cooper companies that he was using. Says,
you know, I only could get He going to use
(16:27):
four to five bats out of the dozen. He felt
the other ones were subpar. That's how they did it.
So being naive and thinking, I'm just gonna give you
the best quality, and he loved it. It was the
right thing to do to make it look right. You know,
there was the paint was gonna look good, the detail
and the stamping and the knob, you know, I would
(16:49):
I would stamp in the player's number or stamping, so
all that detail was in there when it was made,
like I'm born on it. I mean, no one had that.
Everyone was just mass producing bats. You know, these guys,
that's their living you know. Albert once told me goes,
you know, I love a lot of things in life.
You know, I love my wife, you know I love
my bats. I love my kids. Maybe not sometimes in
(17:11):
that order. But you know you're joking because their bats
are livelihood. So no one was making bats like that
for these guys. You would think they would be. He
coined the frame every bat's a gamer, So every bat's
a gamer. Yeah. So I always told people, you know,
we were always chasing the quality, and you're not going
to chase the dollar. You're not gonna chase that money.
(17:32):
Chase the quality of the stuff will come. So that's
spread like wildfire. So the word of mouth was so powerful,
and baseball is a close knit community and that's where
that that really took to another level. We became the
number one bat company probably about two and a half
years ago. That's who slur and by a pretty large
(17:54):
margin now. But you know, you're in sport and probably
the things that you do here all the time, it
is a game of inches. And if those companies made
that bat one inch longer, I wouldn't have probably made
bats because they would have made a bat for my
son and I would have been it. But one inch
dictated to do something and and uh, you know it's
(18:19):
it's and it's you think about this also, it's the
last sport that has used a wooden instrument. Golf has
gotten away from wood, lacrosse, tennis used to use tennis,
wood rackets, hockey, and you know, so the purity of
it allows somebody to to do what we were able
(18:40):
to do. And it's created jobs probably over close to
one hundred jobs, eighty jobs for people, you know, just
because of a wood shop class. So you know, there's
there's a lot that humbles you if you look at
that stuff. You know, you can go to an airport.
(19:01):
And you know, there was a little kid. Uh. I
was flying back from home from Pennsylvania and I was
layover in uh Charlotte Airport, and the kid had the
name on his his shirt and he had the bag
and he was sitting next to me at the we
were waiting. I said, I said, those bats aren't any good.
(19:23):
Why are you wearing those bats? I said, Louisville is
a lot better. And he's getting all mad at me.
And he's getting mad, I said, I said, I can't
pronounce that name. I said, I wouldn't use that stuff.
I said, Louisville's much better. And his grand he was
there flying with his grandfather's grandfather says, no, he loves
those bats now. And uh, you know, so I found
out they're coming. They were coming down for a baseball
(19:45):
camp at l s U. You know, so and so
I shared a story with him and I had him
come over to the office and show him all this stuff.
It was. It was. It was pretty fun.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
And a terrific job on the p reduction and editing
by our own Monte Montgomery. The Story of Imagination, the
Story of problem solving, and the Story of Innovation. Jack
Marucci's story and Marucci sports story here on our American stories.
Host
Lee Habeeb
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