tattooball
Active Member
Sorry I should have said this was posted by Bobby Buggs in the evil forum.
Infriinging on Demarini's patent.
I wonder how much money you made I am sure they will want their share.
"In the past 8 years I have been asked many times "How did you get into this Evil thing?" Well I thought it might be time to go over it. Im sure some folks will have great time with this story, say what you need to but every account here is noting but true.
Roll back to 1980s, I was always interested in having my own sports brand. Companies like Body Glove and No Fear really peaked my interest with action sports and cool logos. At the time they were hot commodities and even though not everyone knew exactly what they made or stood for, people just thought they were Cool me included. I even had a NO fear sticker on my snow board back in 1993 and a Body Glove sticker on my car back in 1985. No I never was a surfer just liked the design of the logo.
Now some of you know this first hand but Im am a very different type of personality. A marketing guy and technical specialist, not a common mix of traits. I actually am a Board Certified Entomologist the tech side, and I own Pest management firms where I develop and implement advertising and marketing strategies.
Well fast forward to the mid 90s, a guy named Demarini reshapes softball with this new double wall bat design. It was the most fun bat I had even hit with.I always had one in my bag and still do today. I searched for all the info I could get on this guy, even found a 1989 instructional hitting tape from him before he had a bat company.
On to 2000, a bat came out called the Worth PST. A virtually indestructible bat with a price of $400. This bat was like Demarini in the fact it had 2 separate metal components but in the case of the PST the 2nd one, the "shell" was on the out side of the bat. By design and to avoid patent issues the PST had a 100% interference fit. That meant there was not a uniformed gap between the 2 metal surfaces, one of the reasons the Demarini hit so well and had a great sweet spot was the gap between the 2 walls.
So I use my PST a bunch of times and quite frankly for me it sucked. A waste of $400. Im down hitting with some friends and they had the same bat and their bat had a totally different sound and feel when hitting it. It also had a couple waives in it and looked like the cap was coming out.
What I found was they had been hitting the thing all winter out side and the bat started to get out of round. Being 2 different materials the out side shell deformed differently than the underlying frame and that created "gaps" between the 2 walls. Thus allowing the bat to perform more like a Demarinin. The Cap was not coming out of the bat, the Exterior shell was falling down because there was some space between the 2 walls now.
So I look at my $400 log and say this thing sucks, lets take it apart and see why it doesn't hit well. Maybe when its apart we can figure out a way to make it work like my Demarini.
What I found was my bat had massive amounts of a glue called Durabond adhesive between the 2 shells. I cleaned that off and tried the bat, it was better but not like the one I hit of my friends. Knowing that I was not going to use this bat for games I applied the Demarini gap principal to the shell removing about .005 off the inside wall along 80% of the wall leaving the ends of the shell stock like legs. The ends were the contact point and the middle had space between the 2 surfaces allowing it to flex on contact.----______---- crude but thats what a cross section would have looked like.
I put it back together and tried it out The sound was outstanding and it was the best hitting bat I had put my hands on. No we didnt use it in games, it had a poured urethane end cap just to close the end off and give it some weight. But during BP you could hear the thing ring in the parking lot. So I post my findings on a popular 1990s softball message board and was flooded with requests to do them for other people. This was before the composite glass craze and I didnt really think it would be a big deal to do a couple for some of the people on that site. I had NO idea what I was getting into and by the summer of 2001 I was overwhelmed with people contacting me about this. People started calling me Dr Evil and were saying get your bat Evilized by Bobby Buggs. So much that I started my own message board and called it the Shop of Evil. In a short 9 months I had over 1800 registered users. I realized then this was a huge marketing opportunity and started forming some logos for Evil. I had Bat bags made and imported with Evil logos on the bottom, I knew I was starting something here.
But all along there was the black market component of doing something that was not approved for play, it never really sat well with me. My entire adult life I was all about success with legit business and positive messages, I needed a way to get this Evil thing on the right side of the game. In 2003 I came up with the idea for an Evil Ball, a ball that flew farther through improved design but was totally Legal for all association play. I posted this concept on the Shop of Evil message board as it was my place to publicly kick around my ideas. In March of 03 I got a message from some folks at Anac0nda sports, Im like who the hell are these guys They said they were in a position to build this Evil design, would I like to meet with them to discuss the possibilities. I figure what do I have to lose, a 1.5 hour drive to meet with a 40 million dollar company?? why not.
Part 2 coming"
__________________
Infriinging on Demarini's patent.
I wonder how much money you made I am sure they will want their share.
"In the past 8 years I have been asked many times "How did you get into this Evil thing?" Well I thought it might be time to go over it. Im sure some folks will have great time with this story, say what you need to but every account here is noting but true.
Roll back to 1980s, I was always interested in having my own sports brand. Companies like Body Glove and No Fear really peaked my interest with action sports and cool logos. At the time they were hot commodities and even though not everyone knew exactly what they made or stood for, people just thought they were Cool me included. I even had a NO fear sticker on my snow board back in 1993 and a Body Glove sticker on my car back in 1985. No I never was a surfer just liked the design of the logo.
Now some of you know this first hand but Im am a very different type of personality. A marketing guy and technical specialist, not a common mix of traits. I actually am a Board Certified Entomologist the tech side, and I own Pest management firms where I develop and implement advertising and marketing strategies.
Well fast forward to the mid 90s, a guy named Demarini reshapes softball with this new double wall bat design. It was the most fun bat I had even hit with.I always had one in my bag and still do today. I searched for all the info I could get on this guy, even found a 1989 instructional hitting tape from him before he had a bat company.
On to 2000, a bat came out called the Worth PST. A virtually indestructible bat with a price of $400. This bat was like Demarini in the fact it had 2 separate metal components but in the case of the PST the 2nd one, the "shell" was on the out side of the bat. By design and to avoid patent issues the PST had a 100% interference fit. That meant there was not a uniformed gap between the 2 metal surfaces, one of the reasons the Demarini hit so well and had a great sweet spot was the gap between the 2 walls.
So I use my PST a bunch of times and quite frankly for me it sucked. A waste of $400. Im down hitting with some friends and they had the same bat and their bat had a totally different sound and feel when hitting it. It also had a couple waives in it and looked like the cap was coming out.
What I found was they had been hitting the thing all winter out side and the bat started to get out of round. Being 2 different materials the out side shell deformed differently than the underlying frame and that created "gaps" between the 2 walls. Thus allowing the bat to perform more like a Demarinin. The Cap was not coming out of the bat, the Exterior shell was falling down because there was some space between the 2 walls now.
So I look at my $400 log and say this thing sucks, lets take it apart and see why it doesn't hit well. Maybe when its apart we can figure out a way to make it work like my Demarini.
What I found was my bat had massive amounts of a glue called Durabond adhesive between the 2 shells. I cleaned that off and tried the bat, it was better but not like the one I hit of my friends. Knowing that I was not going to use this bat for games I applied the Demarini gap principal to the shell removing about .005 off the inside wall along 80% of the wall leaving the ends of the shell stock like legs. The ends were the contact point and the middle had space between the 2 surfaces allowing it to flex on contact.----______---- crude but thats what a cross section would have looked like.
I put it back together and tried it out The sound was outstanding and it was the best hitting bat I had put my hands on. No we didnt use it in games, it had a poured urethane end cap just to close the end off and give it some weight. But during BP you could hear the thing ring in the parking lot. So I post my findings on a popular 1990s softball message board and was flooded with requests to do them for other people. This was before the composite glass craze and I didnt really think it would be a big deal to do a couple for some of the people on that site. I had NO idea what I was getting into and by the summer of 2001 I was overwhelmed with people contacting me about this. People started calling me Dr Evil and were saying get your bat Evilized by Bobby Buggs. So much that I started my own message board and called it the Shop of Evil. In a short 9 months I had over 1800 registered users. I realized then this was a huge marketing opportunity and started forming some logos for Evil. I had Bat bags made and imported with Evil logos on the bottom, I knew I was starting something here.
But all along there was the black market component of doing something that was not approved for play, it never really sat well with me. My entire adult life I was all about success with legit business and positive messages, I needed a way to get this Evil thing on the right side of the game. In 2003 I came up with the idea for an Evil Ball, a ball that flew farther through improved design but was totally Legal for all association play. I posted this concept on the Shop of Evil message board as it was my place to publicly kick around my ideas. In March of 03 I got a message from some folks at Anac0nda sports, Im like who the hell are these guys They said they were in a position to build this Evil design, would I like to meet with them to discuss the possibilities. I figure what do I have to lose, a 1.5 hour drive to meet with a 40 million dollar company?? why not.
Part 2 coming"
__________________
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