Our Background
You’ve probably read all the stories about former players, former carpenters, former bat reps, or even former sawmills deciding to start their own maple baseball bat business. At RockBats, we have a different story to tell...
RockBats was
founded based on the knowledge of wood science, engineering, and the love of
baseball.
Based in Wisconsin, where the Sugar Maple tree is our state tree, we specialize in Hard Maple baseball bats. Hard Maple is stiffer, stronger, harder, and tougher than White Ash, which has been the most common wood used for the manufacture of baseball bats for the past 100 years. Because of these superior properties, hard maple bats have grown by leaps and bounds in popularity.
Not just another bat company jumping on the maple bat band wagon, RockBats set out to revolutionize hard maple baseball bats. Two features that make RockBats stand apart from all other bat manufacturers..
1. Face-grain contact. Through scientific research and testing, RockBats has determined that the strongest orientation for a maple bat to make contact with a baseball is on the face grain. We call this Face-Oriented contact.
2. Sweet spot testing. Because no two pieces of wood are alike, this means that the sweet spot can vary in solid-wood baseball bats. At RockBats, we test every bat to determine the sweet spot location, and we identify the sweet spot location on the barrel.
All ballplayers know that when contact is made on the sweet spot, the vibration at the handle is minimized. When a player hits the sweet spot, there is no energy lost due to vibrations, and all the energy during the hit is transferred from the bat, to the baseball. We refer to this as Robust-Contact Energy.
All of these combined features are wrapped up into our trademarked technology...
FORCE TechnologyTM
Face-Oriented, Robust-Contact Energy
Did we make all of this up? No.
The data that shows that maple is stiffer, stronger, harder, and tougher than White ash comes from the USDA Forest Products Laboratory Wood Handbook. This is a handbook published by the national research laboratory of the Forest Service, also located in Wisconsin. Read more about the Forest Products Laboratory at their website...
RockBats History!
Our original logo included the diamond, with a maple leaf on the inside. The actual maple leaf shown above is the one used for the leaf outline.
RockBats logo at the sweet spot. Through analysis of bat shapes and testing of several bats, it was determined that sweet spot locations varied from bat to bat. The sweet spot that was being determined by test was more accurately referred to as the node of vibration. It quickly became apparent that...
“No Two Solid-Wood Baseball Bats Are Alike”!
Even two bats having the same shape and weight can have slightly different sweet spot locations. That's because wood varies from tree to tree, and the elasticity of the wood varies from tree to tree. A stiffer wood is going to vibrate at a much higher frequency than a more flexible wood, so this affects the location of the vibration node point - i.e. affects the location of the sweet spot on the bat.
RockBats is the only bat manufacturer that identifies the location of the sweet spot on the barrel of the bat.
The Business
The first marketing efforts promoted RockBats as the only baseball bat in the industry that was individually tested for sweet spot location. Those who used them said “WOW”, and RockBats gained a good number of loyal customers. However, the comfort zone was only about 300 to 400 bats per year. In RockBats' first year, 3 bats were sent to the NCAA Baseball Bat research center at the University of Massachusetts – Lowell. This was not necessary, because these were solid-wood bats, and the NCAA Ball Exit Speed Ratio (BESR) test was intended for NON-WOOD bats. The NCAA standard test at the time for NON-WOOD BATS was a machine that swung a bat at a ball (see right), and the exit speed of the ball could not be any higher than 97 miles per hour. Even the expensive $300-$400 metal composite bats had to undergo this test for NCAA certification, and they too could not exceed the 97 mph limit. Journal articles on the performance of solid-wood bats showed that White Ash could reach speeds in the upper-80 mph, and up to about 90 to 92 mph for Hard Maple bats. During the testing, our RockBat achieved a reading of 94.96 mph. Basically, our RockBat tested at 95 mph, which was just 2 mph shy of the legal limit. The test guys could not tell us if this was the highest test result that there ever was with a solid-wood bat – they’re not supposed to. But after that testing, all that we could say was “WOW”.
In 2004, RockBats sent out a survey to everyone on their mailing list, and asked for comments on the design of a new logo. It was decided to lose the ".COM" in the logo, but all else would remain the same. This resulted in larger letters that spelled "RockBats".
Our Growth
At the end of 2005, RockBats was ready for the MAJOR LEAGUES!
Today, RockBats is operated by an ownership group having the necessary combination of skills and experience...
Zelazoski Wood Products, Inc. (ZWPI) is a family-owned wood products processing company that brings generations of expertise to the manufacture of RockBats. ZWPI has transformed the RockBat from simply a lathe-turned piece of wood to a high-performance engineered wood product.
Mike and Christy Kingery operate as the RockBats Major League connection. Mike had 17 years of professional baseball experience as an outfielder with the Kansas City Royals, Seattle Mariners, San Francisco Giants, Oakland A's, Colorado Rockies and Pittsburgh Pirates. Today, Mike also owns and operates Solid-Foundation Baseball Academy. When developing a new baseball bat design, all prototype bats are placed in Mike's hands to be evaluated for its performance and feel.
Greg and Sherry Nemec bring a tremendous retail marketing background and a huge network of baseball players that they hosted as part of the Northwoods League St. Cloud, MN team.
Andy Vogt, brings the type of baseball background that is perfectly suited for RockBats – a 2005 all-star infielder for the Manitowoc Bandits and a mechanical engineering background. Andy works closely with ZWPI in developing custom bat shapes for players and assures bat durability and performance through the RockBats design process.
Professional Baseball certification
RockBats became certified for supplying bats to Professional Baseball in 2007, and 2008 marks the 2nd year of producing bats for professional players. Due to MLB requirements, we could not place our logo at the sweet spot location. Instead, the logo needs to be located at the 18" mark from the end of the knob. Also, players commented that our "RockBats" logo was not visible on television, so it was recommended that we enlarge the letters. We again kept the same maple leaf and diamond shape, and have the logo shown below.
We maintained our uniqueness by still placing a mark at the sweet spot location. Bats used by professionals look exactly the same as that shown below, except that they cannot have the sweet spot sticker.
So that’s our story.
Whether you are an amateur player or a professional player who plays in front of thousands of fans... the baseball bat is THE most important tool in your game. Making contact with the ball is up to you. Providing the solid-wood baseball bat, made by the most highly-advanced processing and manufacturing techniques, using true Hard Maple wood that passes the strictest sawing, drying, selection, grading, and inspection criteria in the industry - is what RockBats has to offer. We do not offer a spectrum of colors, and any new bat shape that we produce is always confirmed for its performance and durability by analytical and experimental methods, as well as placed in the hands of a retired Major League Baseball player for final approval.
RockBats are the most highly-advanced, solid-wood baseball bats in the industry today, and are Approved for use in Professional Baseball.
Click here if you are ready to order your RockBat.