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Blogs:
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Chipmunks "Squeakquel" on DVD/BD March 30
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Late surge gives Zips ugly road win
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Stallworth's contract terminated
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QB in Browns future: another mock draft
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KSU Notes – February 9
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NBA Power Rankings from Around the Internet
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Buckeyes grab 18 players on signing day
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Republican Pre-Conditions
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Citizens United v. F.E.C. (Part 4): Kennedy's and O'Connor's Basic Approaches to Constitutional Decisionmaking – Top Down and Bottom Up
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Collector Car Hobby Loses One of the Best—Jim Roll
Let's Talk Real Estate:
Decisions Decisions: Credit Cards or Your Mortgage?
Ohio Travels with Betty:
Loucile is looking for a Lake Erie getaway in June for three kids, ages 1, 3, and 5.
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Talk of the Town – Top entertainment picks for the weekend
HRLite House:
Track HR Research
Akron Gamer:
'Tecmo Bowl' recreation of Super Bowl XLIV
See Jane Style:
Do IT this week: Layering
By Jim Carney
Beacon Journal staff writer
POSTED: 07:38 p.m. EDT, Mar 12, 2009
WADSWORTH: It started out as a father's desire to make something great for his son.
Michael Dean, was asked by his son, Matt Dean, to make him a baseball bat.
Dean had never used a wood lathe before but had purchased one at an auction a few years earlier and took a stab at bat making.
His son loved the bat his father made for him, and so did some members of the son's baseball team.
Now Dad's hand-made bat has turned into a worldwide business in 24 months.
This year, Dean's company, Silver Creek Baseball Bats, is expected to sell about 1,500 wooden bats.
Dean, a former bass player for the oldies cover band Class of '57, worked as a piano refinisher for several years when his son asked him to make him a bat.
After the first bat was made two springs ago, he slowly learned the craft of bat making and began giving the bats away and then selling some.
In 2007, he sold about 75 to 80 bats.
Last year, when he realized he had a viable business on his hands, he sold nearly 450.
This year, selling bats in Italy and the Dominican Republic, but mostly within the U.S., he hopes to hit the 1,500 mark and has set a personal goal to some day sell 100,000 to 150,000 a year.
The bats are made in a room he rents at Revere Refinishing in Norton but he hopes to soon cut his bats at his home in Wadsworth in a shop he is finishing.
He calls his company Silver Creek Baseball Bats because he grew up on Silvercreek Road in Wadsworth.
''This year, it's been insane,'' he said of the growth in the business.
Every week or so, Dean travels about three hours to a lumber supplier and bat maker in western New York and hand picks wood for his bats.
In the back of his SUV, he puts about 100 chunks of wood, called billets, and heads home.
Besides custom-made manufacturing at his shop in Norton, he has personally designed standard bats made at the New York site.
About 20 percent of the bats are custom-made by Dean.
Standard bats are sold for from $55 to $60 a piece and custom-made bats range from $80 to $120 a piece.
It takes Dean about an hour to an hour and a half to make a custom made bat and this year he has been making about one a day.
His bats are made of maple, ash, hickory, oak, beech and birch woods.
While Mike May, director of communications for the Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association, said he hadn't heard of the Silver Creek company, he said because of the use of non-wood bats by high school and college and youth leagues, ''the market isn't big enough to support a bunch of wood bat companies.''
The wood bat market, he said, ''is a niche market and you have to be really good to crack it.''
He said for any sporting goods company, ''you've got to start somewhere and it all starts with one bat. Nike started with one pair of shoes. You can't sell 10 until you sell your first one.''
Luke Ellebruch, 22, a coach of the Kent State club baseball team and a former player on the team, uses Dean's bats.
''Mike bats have the pop,'' said Ellebruch, of Kent, who works as an executive compensation analyst for FirstEnergy.
His bats, said Ellebruch, who plays in the Roy Hobbs hardball league in the summer, ''are durable. You don't have to worry about breaking it.''
The Dominican Republic market was opened by his friend Tim Myers, who was traveling to the Central American country with a church group, Meeting God Through Missions, through his church, CrossPoint Alliance Church in Copley Township.
The group, said Myers, runs a sports ministry and baseball clinics and was doing so in the Dominican Republic.
Myers, a retired Medina High School teacher and former assistant and head baseball coach at Copley High School, took some bats to the Dominican Republic on a consignment basis in January and found some coaches interested in purchasing the bats for their players.
''I think they are as good or better than I've ever seen,'' said Myers of the Silver Creek bats.
As soon as someone sees Dean's bats, Myers said, ''the deal is closed.''
Since Myers introduced Dean's bats to the Dominican Republic, Dean has worked out a shipping agreement with FedEx to deliver bats directly to baseball coaches and players in the Dominican Republic.
He said even in the economic downturn, his products are selling and there is a reason.
''Everybody plays baseball,'' he said.
The experience the last two years of taking a gesture of kindness for his son and making it into a business has been phenomenal, said Dean.
''It's exciting to be involved in baseball,'' said Dean, who last played baseball as a freshman at Wadsworth High School, because, ''I never had the talent as a player to be involved in it in some capacity and especially something like this.''
His dream, he said, is to some day see one of his bats used in a game on television.
For more on Silver Creek Baseball Bats, go to http://www.silvercreekbats.com, call Dean at 330-419-1079 or e-mail him at scbats@yahoo.com.
Jim Carney can be reached at 330-996-3576 or jcarney@thebeaconjournal.com.
WADSWORTH: It started out as a father's desire to make something great for his son.
Michael Dean, was asked by his son, Matt Dean, to make him a baseball bat.
Dean had never used a wood lathe before but had purchased one at an auction a few years earlier and took a stab at bat making.
His son loved the bat his father made for him, and so did some members of the son's baseball team.
Now Dad's hand-made bat has turned into a worldwide business in 24 months.
This year, Dean's company, Silver Creek Baseball Bats, is expected to sell about 1,500 wooden bats.
Dean, a former bass player for the oldies cover band Class of '57, worked as a piano refinisher for several years when his son asked him to make him a bat.
After the first bat was made two springs ago, he slowly learned the craft of bat making and began giving the bats away and then selling some.
In 2007, he sold about 75 to 80 bats.
Last year, when he realized he had a viable business on his hands, he sold nearly 450.
This year, selling bats in Italy and the Dominican Republic, but mostly within the U.S., he hopes to hit the 1,500 mark and has set a personal goal to some day sell 100,000 to 150,000 a year.
The bats are made in a room he rents at Revere Refinishing in Norton but he hopes to soon cut his bats at his home in Wadsworth in a shop he is finishing.
He calls his company Silver Creek Baseball Bats because he grew up on Silvercreek Road in Wadsworth.
''This year, it's been insane,'' he said of the growth in the business.
Every week or so, Dean travels about three hours to a lumber supplier and bat maker in western New York and hand picks wood for his bats.
In the back of his SUV, he puts about 100 chunks of wood, called billets, and heads home.
Besides custom-made manufacturing at his shop in Norton, he has personally designed standard bats made at the New York site.
About 20 percent of the bats are custom-made by Dean.
Standard bats are sold for from $55 to $60 a piece and custom-made bats range from $80 to $120 a piece.
It takes Dean about an hour to an hour and a half to make a custom made bat and this year he has been making about one a day.
His bats are made of maple, ash, hickory, oak, beech and birch woods.
While Mike May, director of communications for the Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association, said he hadn't heard of the Silver Creek company, he said because of the use of non-wood bats by high school and college and youth leagues, ''the market isn't big enough to support a bunch of wood bat companies.''
The wood bat market, he said, ''is a niche market and you have to be really good to crack it.''
He said for any sporting goods company, ''you've got to start somewhere and it all starts with one bat. Nike started with one pair of shoes. You can't sell 10 until you sell your first one.''
Luke Ellebruch, 22, a coach of the Kent State club baseball team and a former player on the team, uses Dean's bats.
''Mike bats have the pop,'' said Ellebruch, of Kent, who works as an executive compensation analyst for FirstEnergy.
His bats, said Ellebruch, who plays in the Roy Hobbs hardball league in the summer, ''are durable. You don't have to worry about breaking it.''
The Dominican Republic market was opened by his friend Tim Myers, who was traveling to the Central American country with a church group, Meeting God Through Missions, through his church, CrossPoint Alliance Church in Copley Township.
The group, said Myers, runs a sports ministry and baseball clinics and was doing so in the Dominican Republic.
Myers, a retired Medina High School teacher and former assistant and head baseball coach at Copley High School, took some bats to the Dominican Republic on a consignment basis in January and found some coaches interested in purchasing the bats for their players.
''I think they are as good or better than I've ever seen,'' said Myers of the Silver Creek bats.
As soon as someone sees Dean's bats, Myers said, ''the deal is closed.''
Since Myers introduced Dean's bats to the Dominican Republic, Dean has worked out a shipping agreement with FedEx to deliver bats directly to baseball coaches and players in the Dominican Republic.
He said even in the economic downturn, his products are selling and there is a reason.
''Everybody plays baseball,'' he said.
The experience the last two years of taking a gesture of kindness for his son and making it into a business has been phenomenal, said Dean.
''It's exciting to be involved in baseball,'' said Dean, who last played baseball as a freshman at Wadsworth High School, because, ''I never had the talent as a player to be involved in it in some capacity and especially something like this.''
His dream, he said, is to some day see one of his bats used in a game on television.
For more on Silver Creek Baseball Bats, go to http://www.silvercreekbats.com, call Dean at 330-419-1079 or e-mail him at scbats@yahoo.com.
Jim Carney can be reached at 330-996-3576 or jcarney@thebeaconjournal.com.
Comments
Click here to post your comments
Posted 09:00 AM, 03/13/2009
I remember The Class of '57. Very good band. A friend of mine from high school was also a member - Bill Cutright.
I wonder if he or his family started the Cut-Right wax paper company?
If I still played ball, I'd order a few of these bats.
I see Mike wears an Indians' jacket. He must be a good man. Isn't there a AA team in Akron that could use a few bats? Let them try a few freebies?
Akron, Oh
Posted 09:39 PM, 03/14/2009
Tim Myers? Wow, now you can write off your trips to the DR as business trips! Save money from going to Obama!
