Bat maker, bat maker make me a bat

After watching wood bat after wood bat break while coaching Little League and Babe Ruth teams, and then repairing them with a horrifying combination of tape, screws and nails, Lavezzo decided to try and make a better bat.

"We were breaking so many bats in Babe Ruth," Lavezzo said. "There was no pop in these (wood bats bought at local sporting good stores). I just said, 'Instead of spending my time repairing them, I'm gonna make some.'"

Lavezzo, 44, a graduate of Serra and a longtime fixture in the San Mateo and Serra sports scene, began making his "Bam Bats" two years ago. A huge San Francisco Giants fan, Lavezzo, whose baseball career never passed Little League, nonetheless had been around the sport his life. Lavezzo grew up in a time when wood bats were the only bats used as aluminum sticks were just starting to come onto the baseball landscape.

"I think it was better wood back then," Lavezzo said, adding that he had the same "Willie Mays" signature Louisville Slugger bat for years. "But we took care of wood bats because if you break them, they're useless. (Today) guys don't know how to swing 'em. Label up."

A generation of players never even touched wood bats, unless they were admiring a coach's bat that might as well have been an antique to the players. Over the last several years, however, wood bats have made a resurgence at the youth level. It's about returning to the game's roots. Wood bats can also be used as a training aid. If a player can learn to hit with a wood bat - a smaller sweet spot and heavier than aluminum - the thinking is that the player will hit the ball better when they switch back to aluminum bats.

Wood bats also represent professional baseball. Once a player leaves high school or college for pro ball, they have to ditch the metal in favor of wood. Kids nowadays are using wood bats in special wood-bat leagues, hoping the time spent swinging the lumber now will translate into a pro contract later.

It was one of these wood-bat league games that was the straw that broke the camel's back for Lavezzo. One of players, using a brand new bat, saw two pitches - the second of which broke the bat as the player grounded out. The bat didn't even die a noble death.

Batter up

Lavezzo sprung into action. He picked up an $80 lathe - a machine that spins a piece of wood allowing the worker to carve into it. He bought some woodworking tools for about the same price at a local hardware store. He then scouted around for a place where he could find wood to make the bats. He found a lumberyard in Berkeley and picked up some 3 inch by 3 inch billets of ash, which is what traditional wood bats are made of. The problem is - the wood is soft. That makes it easier to work with, but also easier to break.

He also bought one piece of maple.

"Just when you pick [maple] up, you can feel it. It felt like a rock," Lavezzo said. "Ash was just garbage. It was lighter, it was wimpier."

It was also cheaper. Just starting out, Lavezzo didn't want to spend $26 for maple just to practice on. So he turned a few $16 ash pieces into his first bats.

They were rough. He admits he didn't know what he was doing. He later found that the woodworking set of tools he was using were not very good. Plus, they were dull since he didn't know you had to sharpen them.

"I didn't know what the hell I was doing," Lavezzo said. "It was hit and miss. I started reading some stuff."

After upgrading his tools, little by little Lavezzo began gleaning information about the craft whenever he could. He went to woodworking shows and learned how to sharpen his tools. He asked the Louisville Slugger bat maker at Pac Bell Park questions about his craft.

Much like a batter's swing, however, practice makes perfect. When he first started, Lavezzo said it took him about eight to 10 hours to turn one bat. Now he can finish one in 30 to 45 minutes.

The milling of the bat is only half the battle. After he has the dimensions just right, he sands the bat while it turns on the lathe. He starts out with rough grit and works it down to very fine. From there, he adds his "Bam Bats" logo - a computer-generated image that he traces onto the bat and then burns into the wood with a woodburning tool. He personalizes it and then stains it. The finishing touch is usually three coats of clear lacquer.

"My favorite is a golden-oak finish. It makes it look like the bats I had when I was a kid," Lavezzo said. "I've mixed and matched dyes into stains, mixed stains. I have someone who wants a dark-green bat."

While Lavezzo does make the bats for gifts occasionally, don't expect to just knock on his garage door and have him make you a custom bat. He does charge a nominal fee to cover the expense of material, but in relation to buying a bat from a sporting goods store, the price is comparable.

Lavezzo works almost exclusively with maple now, but he will make an ash bat if that's what someone wants. He also numbers all his bats. He's made 134 maple bats but only 21 ash sticks.

"I tell them I'll make you an ash bat, but it will break and it will break soon," Lavezzo said. "You can't get good ash."

And how did he come up with the name "Bam Bats?"

"That's my nickname - Bam Bam," Lavezzo said. He said he got the nickname when a friend was remodeling his house but couldn't demolish the bathtub to get it out of the way.

"No one could get the bathtub out," Lavezzo said. "I said, 'Give me the sledgehammer.' I got the tub out.

"[The logo] is not an oval or anything. It's more of a broken window.

"Bam!"