As hitters step up to the plate today to take their first swings of the new baseball season, more and more big leaguers are doing so with a bat that was made in Middle Tennessee.
Old Hickory, which began in a one-car garage in the late 1990s, now operates out of a spacious factory in Goodlettsville where the company churns out 170 bats a day. Co-owner Chad Lamberth says, like its operations, Old Hickory’s reputation among big league hitters is growing.
“Really, it’s just word-of-mouth through players. We feel like we make a really good product and let the product speak for itself and then the players will kind of become their own spokesperson,” said Lamberth
Major League Baseball leaves it up to the individual companies to keep track of how many players swing their bats. Old Hickory, which is up against long-time bat makers like Louisville Slugger, says it’s among the top four suppliers.
Among the loyal users of Old Hickory bats is last year’s American League MVP Mike Trout.
The Old Hickory brand is a nod to the nickname of former President Andrew Jackson and to Hall-of-Famer Babe Ruth who swung a bat made of hickory. The company’s bats are actually made from maple or ash.
Co-owner Jon Moyer first got into the bat business when he was a furniture maker in Kansas City. An amateur ballplayer came to him, two broken bats in hand from the previous night, wondering what he was doing wrong.
Moyer told him, “it’s not you, it’s the bats”
“So, I went to my shop, turned a couple, and the rest is history. And it just took off from there,” added Moyer.
Moyer wound up in Goodlettsville where he started working for an insulation company. When Lamberth, his co-worker, heard about Moyer’s bat-making past, he became intrigued.
“Jon said that he had thought about it but never had a place to do it. So I talked to my grandmother and she was more than happy to let us start, you know, kind of just piddle with it, nights and weekends. Just in her garage and stuff.”
When Old Hickory was just getting started, each bat was cut by hand in a process that took 20-30 minutes.
Now, using a computerized blueprint, Lamberth says a bat is cut in less than a minute.
“As they come off the lathe, the lathe operator will check for quality at that point,” said Lamberth. “They’re going to be checking for the weight, for one. They’re going to be checking the straightness of the grain; any defects that are in the bat, whether it be in the handle, barrel; checking for cracks.”
“The quality of the
bat starts with the log,” said Lamberth.