OVERSEAS REACHĪnd like the maple bats themselves, which stand up under impact, Sam Bat’s business has not cracked even under the weight of the pandemic. In a promotional video created by Canadian company Shopify, the founder of Sam Bat, Sam Holman, talks about three elements that go into a “perfect maple bat”: straightness of grain, density of wood and the craftsman. According to the maker’s official website, “maple is a very dense wood with a close grain which means it holds together well under impact.” This natural structural integrity, combined with the company’s production process, creates bats that players trust inside the box.Īccording to Shigeru Nishigami, president and CEO of Kashimaya, a Japanese sporting goods distributor whose clients include Franklin and Sam Bats, two-time Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) Pacific League batting champion Katsuya Kakunaka (Chiba Lotte Marines) and nine-time NPB All-Star Yoshio Itoi (Hanshin Tigers) both use the famous maple bat. The manufacturer, Sam Bat - officially, The Original Maple Bat Corporation - first gained notoriety when it perfected a bat for Barry Bonds, now known as the 2K1, with which he hit a league-record 73 home runs. The best known of these bats hail from a 930-square-metre structure located in Carleton Place, near Canada’s capital. Bats have been made from white ash, yellow birch and even aodamo (Japanese ash) trees, but the most prized bats are derived from the same hard maple tree that yields the syrup that sweetens waffles and pancakes. To build on the metaphor, the baseball bat is the sword used in the field of dreams. Most notably, former professional baseball outfielder Ichiro Suzuki embodied the spirit of a baseball samurai. This craftsman-like devotion to the sport has been credited with being the reason so many Japanese players make it across the Pacific into the big leagues. Japanese-style baseball imposed much of the rigidity and discipline associated with its culture onto a slow, American game.
Much like how Japan added value to the auto sector, it adopted an American game and put its own spin on it. An American pastime was not only imported - but embraced and trans formed - in Japan.
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