How to Customize Metal Baseball Bats

Many baseball players like to customize their apparel. It makes the apparel unique to them, and in some instances the customization makes the player perform better on the field because they are more comfortable with the equipment.

Things You'll Need

  • Grip tape
  • Knife
  • Pine tar or resin
Show More

Instructions

    • 1

      Change the grip on the bat. Metal baseball bats are normally sold with a grip already applied. It is usually padded and runs along the entire handle of the bat. Customize your metal baseball bat by slicing away the grip and reapplying tape along the bat handle. You can choose padded or unpadded tape of varying thicknesses, based on your comfort level holding the bat.

    • 2

      Add stickiness or dryness to the handle of the bat. During the dog days of summer, the temperature can really soar. To combat this, many players apply pine tar or resin to their bat. Pine tar will make the bat handle sticky, while resin will have a drying effect, allowing you to grip the bat better.

    • 3

      Pay for bat rolling or bat shaving. An aluminum bat can be customized by the process of rolling or shaving. A bat usually reaches peak performance after it has hit several hundred baseballs, because the metal fibers in the barrel have stretched. The process of rolling the bat stretches those fibers before you ever use it, by running it through a machine that applies pressure to the barrel, thus stretching the fibers. Bat shaving occurs when the metal inside the barrel is shaved away, providing a trampoline effect when the bat strikes the baseball.