Jeremy Mitchell, founder of Mitchell Bat Co.
“I’ve always loved sports, especially baseball. I started sketching this idea, and it felt right.”
Jeremy Mitchell, a designer and web developer by trade, and baseball fan at heart, started MItchell Bat Company. MBC create incredible custom baseball bats, all hand crafted and meticulously painted. The design and craftsmanship has made Mitchell Bat Co. a top choice for sports fans, collectors, professional athletes, and brands throughout the world. Jeremy sat down with us to tell his story.
Ballpark Tales: Thank you for taking the time to share your story, Jeremy. So how did you get started and decide to create a bat company? Who does that?
Jeremy Mitchell: Crazy people start bat companies! I think there are many reasons why I started it, really. It was around 2003, I got an email from a guy named Brad Davis who is a designer and retoucher, and a super nice guy. He was gathering a team of people to rebrand his skateboard company in Nashville called Salem Town Board and now they're called Maple Built.
At the time, we were expecting our second baby girl and I was busy with freelance design. I was doing websites for whoever needed a website. I was editing videos for medical devices and just anything I was saying yes to everything. And then I get this free project pro-bono project for this skateboard company. And so I go in there, we meet, we meet with Jacob Henle, he's the owner. He has tattoos everywhere, on his fingers, everywhere. And this guy was like basically, a former drug addict turned Christian. He loves the Lord and wants to do something good for the community, so he created this skateboard company to help train and mentor inner-city kids. And I thought that was just an amazing thing, so I agreed to this project.
So I went into their shop and creative photos and talked to Jacob and met his team and understood what he was all about. I watched his team work on these wood skateboards and they would paint them different colors and they had every color of spray paint available. And I was like “man, this is cool.” And not only are they creating an amazing product, but they also have an amazing story.
So I began to help them with their website and videos, and we launched them and they were fantastic, and we were really proud of the work that we did. When were finished, I would wake up in the mornings and I would be thinking about that skateboard company and think “man, what can I do? What can I do with my hands? You know, I'm not a maker. I can barely change a light bulb in my house!”
BT: So at this point, you are thinking about making things away from the computer, and starting to craft something. What was the first thing you did?
JM: I grabbed a sketchbook and just started thinking and sketching. I thought about things I like, and I started drawing and doodling these baseball bats with different stripes. Some were fat, some were skinny, and I just started sketching. I still have those original sketches, and I just started just geeking out about these bats.
JM: I posted some of the sketches on my personal Instagram account, and would get a couple of likes. I had no intention of creating a bat company at this point. I would post these pictures and I go on with my day and I would get like 50 likes. I mean, that's usually I get like 2 likes like my sister and my mom, like my photos. But then I was getting all these like strangers asking me “hey, are you starting a bad company 'cause. I want to buy one of your bats.”
So I'm like, “well, you're talking about these are just pencil sketches. Like, there's nothing here!”
So then I brought the sketches into Photoshop and started making out renderings. So that's when it really started to resonate with people, and interest grew.
So time passed and was around September or October, and our second baby is due to be born. So perfect time to start a company, right?
I told my wife the idea. I wanna start this bat company and she's like, what are you talking about? And I was like, “you know, these are bats that you hang on your wall. These aren't bats you would use the field.”
She's asked me, “well, how you gonna do that?”And I confidently said, “I have no idea.”
BT: So now you have an idea, you are thinking about making this a reality, then what?
JM: So, It was now October 30th, 2013. And the Red Sox were playing in the World Series, it was game six. And if you remember back then, like, baseball seemed to be hot back then. Everyone was excited about baseball. It was in the news, and a lot of people talking about baseball with two of the most historic team playing in the World Series.
The Red Sox were about to win this whole Series, and it was during a commercial break that I launched the bat company, no joke. It was seven things stretch, a 33-minute commercial break. I bought the URL for Mitchell Bat Co. I built the website and started the Instagram account just like really fast. I posted on the site that it would take 6-8 weeks for a bat. The clock will start. It'll be two months later. People will understand that there's a two-month waiting period to get these and I'll have enough time to figure it out.
So I launched the company. No joke, four days later with no real advertising, I sold a bat. I only had an Instagram account and I think that was feeding into my page and I sold two bats four days later to one guy. So my first customer was my first repeat customer!
“It was that that that moment was crazy because I was like, I don’t even know how to do this!”
BT: That’s amazing. Now, you could have sketched anything and thought about making any sort of product. It could have been hot air balloons or racecars. Why baseball bats? Where did the love of baseball start?
JM: I think baseball has always been a part of my life. I started playing T-ball at age 6. I was competitive. I was good. I was fast. I ran track in college, and I was a sprinter. The 110 hurdles, and 400-meter hurdles. I was an athlete my whole life.
I always had a love for the game of baseball. I didn't collect baseball cards, but I collected photographs. My mom would find these photographs of Babe Ruth or flat montages of Yankees jerseys. And I was fascinated with baseball.
My mom was somewhat of a history buff and had an appreciation for handmade stuff like quilts and wooden things. We would go to festivals and see all these handmade goods or crafts for sale. The makers were making brooms, making quilts. And so I always had like a fascination of like, “wow, someone made that!”
So pairing my love for baseball, and that appreciation for craft - it really seemed to fit.
BT: Amazing. That is a great connection of passion and appreciation. So after those first sales, how did it start to pick up momentum?
JM: We had already started the bats, and started creating custom hockey sticks. We’ve really expanded now with the bats with pro athletes, and partnerships with brands like Jack Daniels, Ralph Lauren, and others. The Ralph Lauren moment was big.
Someone from Ralph Lauren reached out to us. We hopped on a phone call and at the end of the phone call, they talked business. “We wanna do this many units and this amount and you gotta sign all this paperwork.” I was like, “OK bye. Wait, how did you find out about me?”
He said this guy on the other line had a reliable source. What does that even mean? Long story short, someone was gifting a bat to David Lauren, Ralph Lauren's son. So we created it, and when he got the bat and he was like, “we have to have these in our store!”
“My best advice is simply to do your thing. Don’t worry about the number of followers and likes you have. If it makes you happy, then that’s the only number that counts.”
Mitchell Bat Co. created a special baseball bat for us here at Ballpark Tales. The craftsmanship and detail is incredible. We highly recommend checking them out and connecting with Jeremy if you are looking for a one-of-a-kind gift for the baseball fans in your life.
