Devin Mesoraco's Bat Story

Devin Mesoraco will bring new lumber this year.
Photo Credit: Keith Allison

As someone who now calls central PA home, I absolutely loved C.Trent's story about Devin Mesoraco's bats.  I'm less than an hour from Punxsutawney, and the abundant maple trees in this area are a defining feature of our landscape.  It's pretty neat that he was able to get a dozen bats from trees living on his property.  I'm with the bat manufacturer, though: it's going to be tragic when they get broken this year.  I'm going to wince every time he breaks a bat this season.  Excerpt:

The entire Mesoraco family kept tabs on the process, and they were lucky because one of the two facilities Marucci uses, a mill in Punxsutawney, is just seven miles from Mesoraco's house. From there it was sent to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where Marucci carves the bats, and even there a bat could get rejected. 

"That was a big fear because you don't know, you can look at a tree, you can read the grain pattern, but you don't know until you get in," Marucci said. "Or even when we cut them on the lathe, there's defects inside. We're so particular, we'll cut 40-some bats to get a dozen. It worked out perfectly, we picked out the perfect trees. We were fortunate and it was some of the best quality wood we've seen." 

In the end, there were 12 bats Mesoraco will use throughout this season — the DM 814 models are the ones from his house, the 814 representing his area code.

Great stuff by C.trent!