Who Is...mike Carmichael?

WE'VE HEARD OF A PITCHER PAINTING THE CORNERS, BUT COME ON....
Carmichael, a 57-year-old housepainter from Alexandria, Ind., began painting a regulation baseball in 1977 Now, 18,000 layers later, the ball is 35 inches in diameter and weighs 1,300 pounds. He recently applied for its inclusion in Guinness World Records as the largest ball of paint.

WHAT IS HIS INSPIRATION?
Carmichael says that when he was in high school, he was playing catch with a pal when the ball got away and came to rest in some paint. Carmichael took that ball and put a few coats on it. It wasn't until years later, though, that he began painting his current ball. "I did it for the heck of it," he says. "My first thought was that I'd put 1,000 coats on it to see what it looked like. But when it got bigger and bigger, friends encouraged me to keep working on it because they've seen it grow."

WHAT HAS HE INVESTED?
Mainly time (each morning he'll paint it once and will often apply a couple of coats at night) and space (the ball has moved from a spare room to a backyard shed, and this summer Carmichael plans to build a barn to house it). One thing he no longer needs to invest in is his primary material: He recently signed a sponsorship deal with Sherwin-Williams, which supplies his paint.