How to Care for your Wood Bat

Because we take so much care when we make your Rock Maple or Yellow Birch wood bat, we want to show you how to care for your bat and make it last:

Never ever throw your wooden bat. MaxBats were not meant to be thrown, nor is any other piece of equipment except the baseball.
Thin handled wood bats are not always your best option. The thinner the handle, the less mass it has. The majority of our wood bats feature a handle diameter of 15/16″ for feel, and strength, and it’s what most professionals want. For most players a medium handle wood bat is the way to go!
Practice with soft toss and tee work when you first use your new wood bat. This will help train your eye to ensure proper contact with the ball when facing live pitching.
Always position the bat in your hands so the MaxBat logo is facing you (up), or that the logo is on the opposite side facing away from you (down). We take great care to place our MaxBat logo on top of the wood grain to ensure that when a pitched ball is struck, you will make contact with the wood bats strongest surface. The positioning of the label will help you find the “sweet spot” on your bat. Hitting the baseball squarely on the sweet spot will help you reach the fences and beyond!
Don’t leave your wooden bat in the trunk on a hot day. Your car can become an oven. High heat can bake the moisture out of your bat causing it to become brittle. Long periods of exposure to heat is not good for any bat. This is why you want to avoid purchasing a bat from a sporting goods store window. Bats are like people, we want to be comfortable, not hot or cold.
Don’t hesitate to send us an e-mail at info@maxbats.com with any of your questions. We love hearing from you.

The better you can take care of your wood bats, the longer they will last.

MaxBat Wood Bats Protected in a bat case

Categories: Baseball Bats, Baseball Training, Birch Bats, Custom baseball bat, Maple Bats

Tags: baseball bat, Birch Bats, custom baseball bat, Maple Bats, maple wood bats, wood baseball bat, wood bat company, wood bat manufacturer, wooden bat

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TownBall Parks Of MN

With over 300 amateur baseball teams in Minnesota, the opportunity to play at some of the nicest “TownBall Parks of MN” seems to be more and more of a routine occurrence. The time and money dedicated to these baseball diamonds is spent on the playing surfaces themselves. A great deal of effort is also put into the amenities. The great play and amenities make it a welcoming event for the purest of fans and the fans just looking for a burger and a beer on a Sunday afternoon.

The bar is set high, as hosting a state tournament is the pinnacle spectacle for your facility. In 2020, the state tournament was held outstate of the metro area in the small towns of Springfield and Milroy. The playing surfaces were pristine, the grass perfectly striped, with beautiful grandstands and party decks accommodating 48 different teams in 3 weekends.

SpringField Milroy

Ranking the Top Parks

The state is home to many of these “Sistine Chapels”. Most recently, for those of you on Twitter, Bob Greeley (@bob_greeley76) took the time to rank the top 100 ballparks in amateur baseball in MN. The criteria was based on: playing surfaces, grandstands, dugouts, concession stands and the overall ambience created for the total fan experience. These sanctuaries have been featured in multiple state tournament host sites and many featured on state news tours with Fox9. They host high school, legion and amateur games. The top 10 on Bob’s list is nothing short of ballparks any fan in MN must see, or take the opportunity to play at.

Top Ten TownBall Parks of MN:

10. Chanhassen

9. Dundas

8. Chaska

7. New Ulm

6. Cold Spring

5. Shakopee

4. Jordan

3. Dassel

2. Miesville

1. Delano

In Conclusion

As you can see, TownBall Parks Of MN all have the same things in common. Time and dedication are the key ingredients along with some dedicated volunteers it takes to keep their holy grails in immaculate condition. And they do it because baseball is a passion inside of us all and the success of this game for the future generations continues to grow. Over the course of time, the caretakers have changed, the equipment has been upgraded, and the technology has advanced. But one thing will always remain the same, amateur baseball players and teams take pride in their hometown diamonds.

https://twitter.com/bob_greeley76?lang=en

Categories: Baseball Bats, Maple Bats, ProXR, Wood Baseball Bats, Wood Bat, Wood bat manufacturer

Tags: baseball bat, custom baseball bat, Maple Bats, maple wood bats, wood baseball bat, wood bat, wood bat manufacturer, wood bat manufacturers, wooden bat, wooden bats

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MaxBat ProXR vs. other Non Traditional Knobs

MaxBat ProXR vs. axe Style Handles.

Why is the ProXR angled knob the best in baseball, let us explain. The swing of an actual axe (chopping wood), which the competitors’ product is based on, has a linear swing path. Meaning it drives the hands to the point of contact. This is probably the most important point…the swing of an axe always ends at contact. This is critical. The oval shape and general configuration of an axe handle evolved over thousands of years specifically to drive the axe head to the point of contact. This also applies to swords, hammers and other linear-path swing implements. The oval shape locks the hands into alignment with the swing path. This PREVENTS the hands from deviating from that swing path.

Round Knob is Key

In sharp contrast, the MaxBat ProXR knob is round and you know a baseball swing is rotational. Meaning the bat must rotate around the batters’ body and the hands MUST roll over the central axis of the bat to compete the swing. This gives hitters the ability to both, make adjustments during the swing and complete the rotational swing path. Putting an oval axe handle on a baseball bat is in direct conflict with the requirements of a rotational baseball swing. Imagine trying to adjust your swing on a breaking ball or change-up when the shape of the handle is resisting those adjustments.

ProXR was designed from the ground-up specifically for a rotational baseball bat swing. It reduces compression in the hands and gives batters improved performance. Additionally, we tested our designs before we went to market and continue to do ongoing research and testing. As a side note, ProXR is the only angled knob technology that uses a round knob shape to help create a smoother swing.

In terms of game performance, ProXR performs very well. Every professional player who swung ProXR in 2018-19 had career hardest hits as measured by StatCast. We have not yet assessed the 2020 data.

You can add the ProXR knob to any custom MaxBat wood bat. Check it out under the “knob” section of the custom bat builder… https://www.maxbats.com/shop/bats/custom/141/5

The ProXR round knob versus axe style handles oval knob.

The round ProXR knob allows the bat to follow the natural swing path of a baseball bat. The oval knob shape fights the natural swing path.

Categories: Baseball Bats, Bat Swing Speed, Custom baseball bat, Maple Bats, ProXR, Wood Baseball Bats, Wood Bat, Wood Bats

Tags: baseball bat, custom baseball bat, maple bat, swing mechanics, swing speed, wood baseball bat

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What are the advantages of a cupped wood bat?

Often times we get asked about cupped vs. not-cupped, and many of those questions come from Major Leaguers. So, we’re here to give you some information as to the reasons why a wood bat is cupped and what are the benefits.

Back in the day, wood bats did not have cupped ends. It wasn’t an option, and nobody had given any thought to the practice. So when did it start?

Well during Spring Training of 2005, HOF catcher Johnny Bench came over to our display at Reds camp in Sarasota, FL. He asked lots of questions about MaxBat, and picked up practically every model that we had with us to show to players. It was then that he said, “You know, I was the first player to swing a cupped bat in the Majors back in the ‘70s”. It was a very interesting comment, as you can imagine. Here stands a Hall Of Famer, and we’re going to hear how cupping wood bats started.

Johnny described how he wanted his wood bat to feel a little more balanced, and after some thinking, he came up with the idea to hollow out the very end of the barrel to remove a little bit of the bat’s end weight.

So there you have it……Johnny Bench. The cupped wood bat innovator.

Nowadays, players can get a cupped wood bat no matter who they are. However, many of them still do not know the advantages a cupped bat gives them as a hitter.

The first advantage is that (like Johnny Bench said) a cupped bat will make the bat a tad more balanced. This can be a great benefit if you’re facing a pitcher who is throwing gas, and you’re in the dog-days of Summer and you just don’t feel you’ve got the swing speed to catch up to the pitch. Most players understand this, and it’s for that reason that most players will request a cupped end.

However the most beneficial reason to order your wood bat cupped, is that as a wood bat company and wood bat manufacturer, we can use a higher density piece of wood to make your bat if we know ahead of time that we are going to cup the end during one of the final stages of production.

Follow me here…..the #1 thing a ballplayer wants from a wood bat is to get the hardest piece of wood they can. Harder wood equals stronger wood. Stronger wood equals more pop and more durability. When we cup a bat, we know that we can remove up to 7/10ths of an ounce off the overall weight of a bat. So if we know that we are going to remove that weight at the end of the process, one of our production members can first select a wood bat billet that is on the heavy side (heavier wood equals higher density wood). If we’re attempting to make the same exact wood bat model, but without a cup, our production team has to use a wood bat billet that is a shade lighter in weight (light wood equals lower density wood) due to the fact that we are not removing any weight by cupping. Make sense?

Some players think that the act of cupping a wood bat somehow makes it weaker….or that the bat will break easier if it’s cupped. Well, a cupped wood bat is made from higher density wood, so it should be stronger and more durable, thus making it last longer.

One concern that players do have in regards to cupped ends is the chance of hitting a baseball off the very end of the bat and the wood chipping away. MaxBat solved this problem years ago when we were first getting the business off the ground. If you’ll notice, our cup design features a thicker “wall” on the end, which gives it more strength to withstand those dreaded end-shots you might encounter when chasing an off-speed pitch.

So in summary, a cupped end adds balance to your wood bat AND allows us to use a higher density (stronger/harder) wood bat billet to create your custom baseball bat.

Categories: Baseball Bats, Custom baseball bat, Maple Bats, Wood Baseball Bats, Wood bat company, Wood bat manufacturer, Wood Bats

Tags: cupped bat, custom baseball bat, wood bat

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How to Care for your Wood Bat