WSJ:
Anyone who has seen a Major League Baseball game the past few years has seen the absurdity: wooden bats constantly splintering, shattering and breaking, their shards fluttering across the field and occasionally into the stands.
But where the rest of us saw an annoyance and potentially a danger, two fans saw a business opportunity.
Jim Cortez, an entrepreneur in Chicago, and Greg Kendra, who is a real-estate agent in Denver, came up with a process by which bats are cryogenically frozen at minus-310 degrees Fahrenheit for up to 24 hours, and then slowly allowed to come back to ambient temperature. They’ve had their bats tested by an independent university laboratory and claim in their patent filing that their cryogenically treated bats are 26% stronger than standard bats.
They’ve filed paperwork with Major League Baseball to have their bats certified for use, but say they have heard nothing back from the league.
Photo by SD Dirk.