When you buy a X-BAT, you'll be among the elite company of many baseball greats. See a list of Major League Baseball players who use X-BATS.
X-Bats are made from the finest hard maple available anywhere. More and more bat companies are advertising hard maple bats but what they don’t tell you are the differences in hard maple as a wood. Hard maple or sugar maple or black maple are terms used to describe the types of maple wood frequently used to make wood baseball bats today. The difficulty in working with maple as a material to make baseball bats is the weight. While hard maple is prized for its density and strength, with these benefits comes a big liability for any bat maker- extra weight. Most bat makers cannot afford to throw out half of their hard maple billets which are unusable for making modern baseball bats. Instead they use soft maple, red maple or lighter maple grown in warmer climates. These yield more usable weight billets but do not deliver the performance of X BATS hard maple bats. Hard maple logs are not all the same. Hard maple bats are made from maple grown in Eastern Canada, New England, down through Pennsylvania and across to Wisconsin. All hard maple is not created equal. Having made more maple bats than any other bat manufacturer, X BATS has identified the right kind of maple to make the hardest, longest-lasting hard maple baseball bats. Using variables like soil mineral content, weather patterns during peak growth periods, seasonal temperature differentials and selecting the right time of year to harvest logs, X BATS hard maple bats have become the choice of the top hitters in professional baseball as well as thousands of developing players at every level of the game. If you want really hard maple, get yourself an X BAT. You’ll see why we are the player’s choice.
Ash Bats
Maple is a much harder more dense wood than ash. The grain doesn’t split with continued use while a top quality ash bat will break apart and split after a day or two of use by a professional ballplayer. There is a great variation in quality ash and quality maple. X Bats is the only company that proved the same quality maple to it’s customers as it does for it’s 240 Major League players. Other bat companies may provide a lesser quality maple than X Bats does but the quality of that wood still exceeds the junk ash that most companies make for the public and sell through large sporting goods stores. There is a greater difference between quality ash and junk ash than there is between the higher quality maple and lesser grades of maple. Ash is a much less expensive wood to produce for bats and many people think they are saving money by buying ash bats for under $30.00. In fact, 3 or 4 of those bats may last as long as one good maple bat so the savings is a fallacy. There are some players who just prefer the flexibility of ash to the stiffness of maple. To these players, the ash seems more forgiving and these players say they feel the ball better with ash.
About 20% of the bats X-BAT makes are ash. We suspect that some people are buying ash to save a few bucks. If the truth be told, they would save more money if they bought a maple bat. Some players really understand their game and specifically want ash for reasons based on what works best for them. They feel it flexes more during the swing and they get more whip with ash. Some like the barrel a little bigger and maple is just too heavy to allow barrels as large as ash bats. Others just say they have more feel at the plate with ash.
Fungo and Training Bats
Most coaches prefer the feel of a wood fungo bat. The X Bat pro maple fungo is a vast improvement over traditional ash and aluminum fungo bats. We have two Hall of Fame coaches in their 80s who have told us in Spring Training that they can hit our balls with our fungo bats for hours because the bat does the work. Light aluminum and light ash fungo bats require a lot of energy to swing. Hitting hundreds of balls can drain a coach of his effectiveness and reduce the time needed to do drills properly. X Bats maple fungo bats almost swing themselves. They require the coach to just "drop the head” and the balls just fly off the hard maple. We make them in all teams colors and will inscribe the coach’s name and school or team on each bat. Once you swing an X Bat maple fungo bat, you’ll never swing anything else. We recommend 34 inch for infield fungoes and ground balls, 36 inch for outfield fungoes and fly balls and 35 inch for a good all-purpose fungo.
Youth Bats
X-Bats makes maple wood bats for younger players from ages 3 to 14 in lengths from 24 inches up to 31 inches using the same quality wood and finish as the bats we make for our pros. With a selection of 7 youth models, X-Bats is the only place to get a quality wood bat that truly fits every youth players’ game. We strongly believe that players should start to swing wood bats as soon as they begin playing baseball. It strengthens their hands, wrists, forearms and teaches them a more compact swing with a more direct path to the ball. Swinging a wood bat which is heavier than the aluminum bats they are used to improves their hand eye coordination and requires them to be more precise due to a sweet sport 1/8 the size of an aluminum bat. The weighting of a wood bat is different from an aluminum bat as well forcing the player to “keep his hands inside the ball” and snap the barrel into the hitting zone. Serious youth players are taught to swing wood from an early age as more and more tournaments are being held using only wood bats.
X-Bats maple wood youth bats are available in a variety of sizes, weights and configurations with handle sizes from 7/8” to 1” and 5 shapes to choose from. The Model 73 youth bat is our most popular choice. The extra weight in the knob serves as a counterbalance making the bat easier to swing. The knob makes choking up more comfortable and allows the player to truly build a bat that fits their size, strength, experience and league. The Model 98 has a longer barrel with more hitting surface than most youth wood bats. It is similar in shape to aluminum bats so the player feels more comfortable with the hitting area. The Model 8 has a thinner handle at 7/8” and a traditional wood bat profile for smaller hands. The Model 10 has a 15/16” handle similar to aluminum bats are suitable to players whose hands are slightly bigger. The Model 12 has a 1” handle for players who want to control the bat more. The Model 12 is a very sturdy bat for players facing faster pitching. He Model 8, 10, 12, 98 and 73 have a 2 1/4” barrel so they are legal for game use in Little League.
The Model 73BB and 98BB are larger barreled youth bats available in weight ranges as light as –3 in 30, and 31 inch lengths. These have 2 1/2”- 2 7/16” barrels are are for larger stronger youth players not bound in leagues or Tournaments by Rules mandating 2 1/4” barrels. These make excellent batting practice and training bats for young players as well.
All X-Bats pro maple youth bats are available in any combination of 24 colors and can be inscribed with the player’s name just the pros! Start your journey to the next level with the best bat on the market today designed and developed by professional hitting instructors for the serious youth hitter.
Model 73BB and Model 98BB are priced at $85.00.
The most frequent call we get is from people trying to decide
how
to select a youth bats for their young player. Players are raised on
aluminum bats and they may as well be trying to translate a golf club
into a wood bat as an aluminum bat into a wood bat. Aluminum bats are
so very different than wood bats. They are ridiculously light, in some
cases as light as –12 (that means take the length of the bat
and
subtract 12 and you’ll get the weight in ounces). They are
balanced so
the weight is in the hands so they are easy to swing. They have a huge
sweet spot from the handle all the way to the end and they cost a small
fortune. They lose their pop after a few months and you’ll be
spending
$250.+ to replace them at least once a season. Many players now want to
train with wood to strengthen their hands, wrists, shorten and quicken
their swing and sharpen their eye by hitting with a smaller sweet spot.
The problem is choosing the right bat.
We make different youth bat models to accommodate the size, strength
and experience of every young player. We make bats in different lengths
from 24 inch to 31.5 inch with weight differentials from Even to
–5
(again, take the length and subtract or add the weight differential and
you’ll get the weight of the bat in ounces). The Model 8 is
for players
who want a very thin handle- this bat has a 7/8” handle. The
Model 10
has a 15/16” handle and the Model 12 has a 1”
handle. The Model 98 has
a long barrel for more hitting surface area but tends to feel a little
heavy on the end because of the longer barrel. The Model 73 is our most
balanced and our most popular bat model for youth players. All of these
bats have barrels that are 2 1/4” in diameter and are legal
for use in
Little League.
For those players not quite ready to swing a 32 inch adult
bat, we make a Model 98BB (for Big Barrel) and a Model 73BB which are
made in 30-31.5 inch lengths and have weight differentials as light as
–3. The barrels on these are 2 1/2” and are suited
for players 12-14
who haven’t graduated to adult bats yet.
For most players who are younger than 11, we suggest a bat
that is 1 inch shorter than the aluminum bat they are currently
swinging and as light as possible (a –5). For players who
have swung
wood before, using the same length as their current aluminum bat will
work fine. For experienced youth wood bat players, a heavier weight
than –5 may be helpful for training to build strength in
their hands,
wrists and forearms.
Get a bat you can use now and don’t worry about growing into
it.
Although a wood bat may feel heavy to the player switching from
aluminum, it will automatically teach them a more short and direct path
to the ball. The change in your player’s hitting will soon
become quite
noticeable as he gets accustomed to swinging his wood bat.
Softball Bats and Softball Training Bats
With more and more softball leagues switching to wood, X Bats is becoming the top wood softball bat for performance , selection and quality. Both men’s and women’s softball players are choosing X Bat softball bats as the tool that they can best customize to fit their game. With 5 bat shapes and a wide variety of custom options, softball players are making a run to X-Bats as baseball players did 4 years ago. Our Model 73SB softball bat is taking off from the success of our Model 73 baseball bat. This bat has the best balance of any wood bat made today and allows the softball player to swing a heavier bat with the ease of a lighter weight bat. Swinging a bat with an even weight or heavier puts more mass behind the ball and results in more power, distance and carry. We also make softball bats with thin 7/8” handle (Model 59), medium 15/16” handles (Model 41) and thick 1 1/8” handles (Model 61). We also offer a model with a flared 15/16” handle and tapered knob (Model 71). Now softball players can have the same choices baseball players have in selecting a bat model that is most comfortable for their game. Again, X Bats offers more options to serious players everywhere. Performance, comfort, style, customization- everything you need to make your game more fun.
There have been lots of questions from players switching from aluminum to wood softball bats as to what weight to order. Most try to get a –5 since they think the bat speed is important. With slow pitch softball, it is purely about the mass behind the ball. Simple physics. You can certainly swing a broomstick faster than a –5 but how far would the ball go. Baseball players try to use a lighter (actually a bat that feels lighter which means it is more balanced as the weight of the bat is not a reliable indicator of how it “feels”)so they can wait and wait and wait to the last fraction of a second to swing at a pitch. The longer they are able to wait, the less chance they have of being fooled by the pitcher. In slow pitch softball, players have “all the time in the world” compared to baseball so the weight is not important. The heaviest wood softball bat you can swing is what you want to hit the ball harder and further.
How to choose a wood softball bat
Many of our players are
in leagues that are switching from aluminum softball bats to wood. They
are accustomed to swinging the lightest aluminum bat possible since
weight and mass behind the ball does not matter with aluminum bat
barrels which provide all the pop by virtue of the material used and
the thin walls. With wood softball bats, especially for slow pitch, it
is important to have as much mass behind the ball as possible. The
heavier the bat you can swing, the further and faster the ball will
travel. A bat at an even weight differential will hit a ball harder and
further than a wood softball bat with a –5 weight
differential (the
weight in ounces is calculated by taking the length of the bat in
inches less or plus the weight differential, so a 34 inch bat with a
–5
weight differential would weigh 34-5=29 ounces). Slow pitch players
have plenty of time to start their swing so needing a light bat to
enable the player to wait as long as possible to avoid getting fooled
by the pitch is not an issue as it is in baseball. The heavier the wood
bat you swing in softball, the harder and further the ball will travel.
>> Choose Your Softball Bat <<
>> Choose Your Training Softball Bats <<
Trophy BatsX Bats has been known as the number one maple bat in baseball. Players choose X Bats because of the quality of our maple, the quality of our finish, the durability or X Bats but first and foremost, their performance. Now X bats is quickly becoming the leader in the the growing Trophy Bat, Award Bat and Display bat market. We are finding more and more people who are choosing X Bat baseball and softball bats for gifts and awards to players, coaches and sponsors. Everyone is looking for a unique gift for their favorite player, coach, graduate, sponsor, client, colleague or customer. X Bats are being proudly displayed on the walls and offices of sports fans everywhere. It is a truly a beautiful and unique gift to present to that special person who loves baseball and softball.
Baseball and Softball Teams and Leagues are presenting X Bats to their MVP, batting leaders, home run leaders and coaches. An X Bat Display makes a great fund raiser or silent auction prize or gift for that special generous supporter.
High school, junior college and college baseball and softball programs are giving X Bats to graduating seniors, as gift bats for their coaches and for fund raising and sponsor thank you gifts.
Gift shops and trophy shops are offering customized X Bat Trophy bats, Awards Bats and Display Bats to their customers for special awards, Father’s Day gifts, Mother’s Day gifts (women play softball, too!) or Birthday gifts. X bats make great Groomsmen Gifts for weddings. X Bats Pro Player Trophy bats are special gifts for the collector of memorabilia to show their support for their favorite players (add link to Pro Player Trophy Bat page).
X Bats Baby Birth Bats (add link to that page) is a great gift for that rookie baseball or softball player that will be proudly displayed long after the rattle and silver cup are packed away.
Advertising Agencies, Corporate Gift Programs, Business Development Marketers and Companies small and large are finding that X Bats make a perfect personalized statement for their clients.
With X Bats proud sponsorship of the US Military All Star baseball Team and Team Marine, more and more bases are offering X Bats as awards for their officers, commanders and outstanding personnel.
The variety of uses for an X bat Gift Bat, Trophy Bat, Awards Bat and Display Bat are as unlimited as the combinations of colors and inscriptions on our X Bat baseball and softball bats.
Professional Bats
Get the same X BAT your favorite player swings. Same wood, same Model, same size and color with your pro's name engraved.
Baby Birth Bats
A great way to commemorate the birth of a newborn. Baseball for boys, Softball for girls.