THE BAT LISTENER

Players are always looking for an edge. When it came to his bats, Carlos Beltrán learned from one of the best to listen to his bats, Edgar Martinez. Early in his career with Kansas City, Beltrán was talking with the Mariners legend before a game in Seattle. Martinez asked for one of his bats then banged it with his hand and then listened to the bat. “What are you doing?” Beltrán asked. “He said, ‘I just like to hear the pitch of the sound of the bat.’ I said, ‘For what reason?’ And he said, ‘The higher the pitch, the better the wood.” Beltrán took those words to heart and became obsessed with his bats. He even became an early user of a specialty bat company based in the Bronx that catered to Hispanic players – Verdero – which had the slogan “Controlling the Game.”