Contributed photo Stanley Oliver shows off a major league-quality Stick by Stan bat outside his Catskill Bat Company in Liberty. (Click for larger image)

Stick by Stan

A local bat craftsman becomes
a national icon

By RICHARD A. ROSS

LIBERTY —America celebrates summer with its usual rituals: sweet-smelling smoke wafts from backyard barbecues, carnivals and fairs echo with the sounds of bands and rides, fireworks light up the sky in magnificent displays. But nothing punctuates the season more than the crack of a bat and the roar of a crowd at America’s favorite pastime, baseball.

The game is part and parcel of the fabric of our culture, as much a part of Americana as the notion that hard work, industry and skill can raise the common man or woman to pinnacles of success and greatness. Baseball and Horatio Alger—twin pillars of the American dream.

A local woodworker, Stanley Oliver, and his Liberty-based Catskill Bat Company, are emblematic of both parts of that dream.

The July 10 All-Star game approaches in the midst of a modern-day revival of a game once thought to be dying out. As Mark Twain would say, rumors of its death were greatly exaggerated. In an era when the home run has commanded center stage, every kid dreams of strolling to the plate toting a bat and becoming the next Mark McGuire, Sammy Sosa or Barry Bonds.

It is the bat that is the centerpiece of this story—and the man who makes them.

Oliver, or “Stan” as he is called, has welded determination and hard work to his love of the game of baseball. The result is a success story with Sullivan County roots.

Catskill Bat Company has produced “Stick by Stan” bats that have brought Stan a place on “Good Morning America” and in  Sports Illustrated. His bats are used by major league stars such as Tony Gwynn, Scott Rolen, Bernie Williams and Paul O’Neill. If we could zoom in on the bat racks at the All-Star game, we would more than likely find several bearing that now-famous logo, “Stick by Stan—Home Run After Home Run.” The slogan comes from David Halberstam’s book, “October 1964” and refers to Stan’s uncle, former third baseman and homerun hitter Ken Boyer of the St. Louis Cardinals.

	Contributed photo Northern ash hardwood is the secret to the strength and beauty of Stick by Stan bats. (Click for larger image)

Like many great American success stories, this one begins rather inauspiciously. Stan came to this region from Joplin, MO, following a want ad for a job at Chester Cable in Orange County. One of his lifelong hobbies was woodworking and, in addition to making furniture, he took to turning bats on a lathe. It wasn’t long before some of his colleagues at work got to see some of his handiwork. Stan made bats for them and for kids at Little League games.

In the winter of 1995, then St. Louis Cardinal Brian Jordan got hold of one of Stan’s sticks and developed an attachment for it. Jordan was working out in the off season with legend Ozzie Smith and team mate Bernard Gilkey. Both Jordan and Gilkey began using them during the ’96 season after the bats were approved by the Major Leagues.

Stan’s business extended to the minor league Binghamton Mets, the Norwich Navigators (the Yankee’s club) and the Phillies’ AA team in Redding, PA. Here, the association with the Phillies began, which eventually led to Stan’s first permanent Major League venue.

When the Phillies’ Scott Rolen hit his first five home runs with one of Stan’s bats, the promotional promise of “a home run in every bat” evolved from a catchy advertising phrase to a matter of national recognition. It wasn’t long before Stan was housed in Veteran’s Stadium, making bats for fans who flocked to the ballpark. In 1998, Stan got a call from the Arizona Diamondbacks. It seems millionaire owner Mr. Calangelo was interested in having Stick by Stan become a part of the new Bank One Stadium.

There might be something magical about Stan’s bats, as both the Phillies and Diamondbacks have at times led their divisions.

Stan has now established himself in Baltimore at the ballpark in Camden Yards, on famous Utah Street. “Maybe someday it will be named Oliver Way,” joked Stan.

Stan Oliver is a simple kind of guy. Were it not for the enormous bat in front of his building in Liberty, it would be easy to pass it by. Its lack of pretentiousness reflects its owner. Stan attributes his success “to the people along the way that have helped me—Mike Sullivan, Ray Walter and the First National Bank of Jeffersonville”—instrumental in helping him get the financing he needed for his building.

Stan explained the effectiveness of northern white ash in producing a bat of strength. Good bats, he said, will actually shatter when struck near the handle, while cheaper bats made with balsam will merely crack. Stan got a new 100-watt lathe to turn his pallets of northern white ash lumber into thin-handled, quick, strong bats. They are then finished with a four-day process of urethane coating.

	Contributed photo 100,000 Stick by Stan bats, shown here on the new lathe, were sold last year. (Click for larger image)

Stan laments that aluminum bats have replaced wooden ones in most Little League and high school arenas. Aluminum bats do drive the ball farther and faster, but for kids learning the game, he said, it speeds up the ball and causes young athletes to miss out on some of the basic fundamentals of fielding and hitting.

When asked about future plans, Stan said he is “just having fun.” He wants to stay in “his own little world,” avoiding offers to contract bats for major leaguers or to “become a nuisance” in the clubhouse.

While chances are slim that you’ll find Stan in at his little factory in Liberty during the summer, you can guarantee that he will be there in the fall and winter restocking his bat supply for next year. Stan sold over 20,000 bats this year, a figure he expects to rise to 100,000 in the near future.

Keep your eyes open around the ball fields this summer. Stan has been known to load his lathe on the back of his pickup and show up at ballgames in Sullivan County to make bats for his neighbors.

Stick by Stan bats sell for $30 to$40. For more information, call 845/292-1657, e-mail sbsbats@catskill.net or visit www.stickbystan.com.