Growth industry

Sosa's batmaker flooded with increased demand

Illinois to honor Sosa WASHINGTON (AP) -- Several Illinois congressmen are expected to visit Wrigley Field on Friday to honor Sammy Sosa, even though the star is facing a suspension for playing with a juiced bat. The U.S. House voted 372-0 Monday to congratulate the Chicago Cubs slugger on his 500th home run and praise him as a role model. Friday's ceremony is to present him with a copy of the House resolution. A day after the House vote, Sosa was found to be hitting with an illegal bat. Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., who sponsored the House resolution, said Thursday he never considered canceling the Friday event. Had another corked bat been found in Sosa's locker, however, Gutierrez would've taken a different approach. "I would have rolled up the resolution and sent it to him in the mail," he said.

BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) -- Before Sammy Sosa snapped his bat in two, Ben Aaron was a small-town lumber mill operator, manufacturing maple bats in happy obscurity for some major leaguers.

Since Tuesday, when the Chicago Cubs slugger's corked-bat flap started, Aaron's life has changed dramatically.

Not only is Aaron fielding several dozen media requests daily for interviews, he's busy trying to find more maple wood to meet the burgeoning demand.

"We're just a very, very small custom bat company. And that's how we want to stay," Shirley Aaron said Thursday, noting her husband was unavailable to come to the phone. "We only produce, I'm talking less than 100 a day."

And yet one of those bats -- albeit, without the cork insert -- is helping put on the map Ben Aaron Lumber and Forestville, N.Y., located about an hour's drive south of Buffalo.

"Someone just made a human error," Shirley Aaron said, supporting Sosa. "And it's like dominoes, traveling right down the path."

That path began about a year ago when Aaron reached an agreement with Jack Kasarjian, owner of Los Angeles-based Tuffbat, to produce what came to be called the XBat.

Aaron wanted to expand his business and had an experienced corps of woodcrafters seeking work after several furniture manufacturers closed their plants in the region.

Tuffbat's Kasarjian had been impressed with Aaron's reliability and was looking for a mill that could not only supply the wood but also produce the bats, cutting the additional cost of transporting the wood to a second location.

The next step was to find an ample supply of major leaguers to take a swing.

That began last year when Kasarjian convinced Sosa to use his product. Many soon followed, including Boston's Manny Ramirez and Anaheim's Troy Glaus, last year's World Series MVP, as Tuffbat's client list grew from two to 86 last season.

Kasarjian said he began this year with 161 clients but Sosa, coincidentally, was not among them.

Sosa stopped using the XBat after signing a deal with Easton. But Sosa soon returned and, on Saturday, had put in a new order for more XBats, Kasarjian said.

Tuffbat was in the middle of filling the order the same day Sosa was ejected in the first inning of a game against Tampa Bay, when cork was discovered in a bat he broke after a ground out.

Kasarjian didn't know whose bat Sosa had used until he saw pictures of Sosa holding a bat that distinctly carried the XBat logo, an "X" on the label.

While Sosa faces a potential suspension and questions about his motives, Kasarjian's business is taking off because of the attention. He reported $15,000 in sales Wednesday, and retailers are filing orders for the bat that sells for $100 apiece.

"I really feel bad for Sammy as a client and a friend," Kasarjian said. "But it's been a real interesting ride the last couple of days."

And he wasn't surprised Aaron couldn't make it to the phone for an interview.

"You won't get him," Kasarjian said. "Ben's out there looking for logs right now."

 

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