SAM BAT: Founders of the Maple Baseball Bat
Who is SAM BAT? The Original Maple Bat Corporation – most often referred to as SAM BAT, after the company’s founder Sam Holman – began in 1997 when Bill Mackenzie, then-scout for the Colorado Rockies, needed help. Bill told Sam that the baseball team was breaking an awful lot of ash bats, and he wondered if Sam, a carpenter with the National Arts Centre in Ottawa, could create a sturdier bat. After conducting extensive research, he’d noticed that no one had yet tried to make one out of maple wood, which is harder than most other woods because of its tighter grain