Dillon Seckington and Carey Wickersham
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — As the eyes of the baseball world look toward Arlington, Texas for the upcoming All-Star Game and the Major League Baseball draft, there’s a small business in Baldwin City, Kansas quietly turning wood into “lumber” designed to go yard.
Jacob Austin Walters grew up with two passions: baseball and woodworking. When he was 12, he got a lathe for Christmas and crafted his first wood bat. By the time he was 16, he was selling them to friends.
JAWbats, named after Jacob’s initials, is now customizing thousands of bats for serious players at every level from its humble workshop in Baldwin City.
Walters selects a piece of birch or maple, incorporates metrics on a player’s individual size, swing and preferences, and then he creates a masterpiece right down to the bat knob and paint job.
“What makes us special is the story behind how we came about, and how we’ve been making bats by hand for 10 years,” said Walters.
“The quality of the wood. The quality of the finish. The feel of the bats and performance of the bats and customization as well.”
Sluggers from youth teams to division-one college programs, to minor league draftees swing JAWbats when the game calls for barreling up with old-fashioned timber. The quality control is pretty simple. Walters’ hands touch every bat before it ever gets in the game.
Walters played high school ball at Shawnee Mission Northwest. He was an outfielder at Neosho County Community College and then his focus shifted from swinging bats to building them.
JAWbats are built from the inside out. The inside represents the bones- sculpted, sanded and loaded. But the outside is where the fun comes in.
“Nobody customizes quite like we do,” Walters grins as he rubs a bat that turns from shiny black to hot pink in a temperature-induced, color-changing metamorphosis.
“It’s kind of like a mood ring. The paint on those bats cost nearly one thousand dollars a gallon!
Ashton Larson graduated from Thomas Aquinas and now plays outfield for LSU. He’s been swinging JAWbats since he was 10. Larson was once wearing a heart rate monitor when he hit a home run. JAWbats took the strip that recorded Larson’s heartbeat during the dinger and put it on a bat for him. Now JAWbats ships about a dozen bats a year to the prospect.
Right now, JAWbats is in the process of certifying so they can get bats in Major League dugouts. They are hoping that will happen within the next year. You can schedule tours and fittings for customizations at JAWbats.com.
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