Baseball: A Two-Way Player-Chapter 481 - 91: Custom-Made

After Lin Guanglai won the titles of Strikeout King and Best Rookie of 2013, Mizuno, who had long signed him as an ambassador, proactively launched promotional and publicity activities.

In early December, accompanied by official staff from Mizuno, Lin Guanglai departed from Tokyo and began his "Mizuno Baseball Equipment Customization Tour."

In the following week, Lin Guanglai would depart from Tokyo and visit Mizuno’s three flagship factories based on their geographical distribution, where he would receive personalized services from professional craftsmen to create custom baseball equipment exclusively for him.

This process would also be entirely filmed by Mizuno and officially released as promotional material after the signing ceremony.

The first stop on this journey was the Yoro Factory located in the town of Yoro, Gifu Prefecture. It also houses Mizuno’s baseball bat production line. As soon as Lin Guanglai entered the factory, he smelled the faint, fresh aroma of wood in the air, accompanied by the roar of machines and the sound of craftsmen manually working with bats.

Hosting him was the pillar of Mizuno’s bat department, Mr. Kubota Goichi: This legendary craftsman renowned throughout Japan has been crafting custom bats for professional baseball players since 1965, including iconic hitters like Pete Rose, Rokkai Hoshimura, Ichiro Suzuki, and Matsui Hideki.

This year, 70-year-old Kubota Goichi has decided to retire at the beginning of 2014, which means that Lin Guanglai will be the last client served by this legendary craftsman.

Under the guidance of Kubota Goichi, Lin Guanglai entered the warehouse of the Yoro Factory where raw wood materials were stored, filled with maple, ash, and birch from North America.

They would start from selecting the wood and genuinely enjoy the "customization from scratch" experience.

Generally speaking, the types of wood used for wooden bats include maple, ash, birch, and bamboo, each with its own strengths and weaknesses. The choice purely depends on the hitter’s personal preference.

Power hitters particularly favor maple because of its clear feedback and direct power transmission. Once hitting the sweet spot, the initial speed of the ball is quite explosive. However, maple lacks flexibility, making it highly demanding on the hitter’s technique—if the ball hits a non-sweet spot, it’s more prone to breaking compared to other woods.

Given that maple itself is more expensive, very few young players who have just entered professional baseball use it as their primary bat.

In contrast, nimble hitters prefer ash for its exceptional flexibility. It is lighter than maple, requires less power, and gives hitters a noticeable "whip" sensation when swinging; at the same time, ash provides a soft touch and has a larger sweet spot, and the bat’s durability is higher—making it the mainstream bat material in the Nihon Professional Baseball.

Birch is also a popular choice for baseball bats. Described in one word, it is "balanced"—birch possesses both toughness and hardness, offering good durability and a forgiving nature, while being relatively inexpensive, therefore quite popular among young players. However, for hitters with distinctive personal styles, birch’s lack of extreme performance in any aspect may not meet their requirements.

As for bamboo sticks made from compressed bamboo strips, most professional baseball leagues do not allow bats made from this material; but their extremely low cost and superior durability, along with near-unbreakable attributes, make them ideal as practice bats for amateur players—back in high school when Lin Guanglai started wood bat training, he practiced with bamboo bats.

After some understanding and selection, Lin Guanglai chose a piece of Canadian maple for his bat material—according to Kubota Goichi, "every piece of wood has its unique life and character, and the piece you personally choose is the one that fits you the best."

With the material decided, Kubota Goichi took Lin Guanglai to another room to start confirming the specific parameters of the bat.

The first things to determine were the length and weight of the bat:

As a long-hitting player over 1.9 meters tall with considerable power, Lin Guanglai naturally preferred a longer and heavier bat for stronger power feedback;

The bat he is currently using, though a Mizuno product, was a mass-produced one sold on the market, with certain details not quite fitting him perfectly.

In the room filled with various sample bats, Lin Guanglai swung bats with different parameters and weight distributions repeatedly until he finally found the feeling he desired—that feeling was truly satisfying, as if every time he swung, it felt like an extension of his own arm. 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ𝑤𝑒𝑏𝑛𝘰𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝒸𝑜𝘮

"Lin, your swing speed is quite fast. You might want to try a bit of ’end-loaded’ balance, letting more weight be distributed towards the bat’s end. This will increase inertia and hitting power, perhaps further improving your power hitting quality."

Kubota Goichi observed Lin Guanglai’s swinging trajectory and offered his suggestion; Lin was naturally happy to accept the advice from this seasoned veteran of bat-making.