A Michigan State coleopterist (beetle expert) whittled the suspects down to a specific genus - Agrilus - but couldn’t pin the exact species. The experts took photos and collected some beetles.īack on campus, they set to work identifying the insects decimating ash trees. Peeling back the outer bark of one tree, the entomologists found bright green beetles beneath, each about a half-inch long, and a maze of tunnels left by larvae feeding on the tree. They had thinning canopies, yellowed leaves and bark riddled with small holes. Something was killing ash trees in the area. In June 2002, the month the Reds drafted Votto, a team of entomologists from Michigan State University drove to Westland, Mich., just outside Detroit, to inspect a stand of ash trees. He’s hoping he won’t run out before he retires. Votto bought out the rest of Marucci’s pro-quality ash inventory, somewhere between 50 and 70 bats, and carefully stowed them in his storage room. The bat company Marucci had the mother lode. So, after talking to the Louisville Slugger rep last offseason, he started contacting other bat companies. He’d tried maple and birch and liked neither. Longoria has, like most hitters in the game, moved on to maple. Hillerich & Bradsby, maker of Louisville Slugger bats, still has a sawmill in Pennsylvania that produces ash bats, but they no longer are in the hands of Joey Votto or Evan Longoria, two of the last players to exclusively use ash bats.
Today, according to fourth-generation bat-maker Bobby Hillerich, not one major leaguer is swinging an ash Louisville Slugger in games. For generations, white ash from forests along the Pennsylvania-New York border was chopped, milled and shipped to Kentucky, then turned into bats for major league hitters. (More on them later.) Louisville Slugger, a brand built on ash baseball bats, was born in 1884 when Bud Hillerich made a bat for Pete “The Louisville Slugger” Browning. And that caused a bit of a panic in me because it’s something I’m very, very used to.”Īsh, the preferred wood for most of baseball history, is on its way out. That’s when I was informed that ash was not going to be available going forward. “Good bats, in my experience, haven’t done that,” Votto says. They were “falling apart,” Votto says, with cracks cutting through the grain right in the center of the bat.
Votto asked a Louisville Slugger rep why the wood on the barrel of his bats - an ash M356 model double-dipped in black finish - was fraying. After seeing his production wane since an MVP runner-up season in 2017, Votto had revamped his swing and approach in the second half of 2020 and gotten to a point where he thought it would work, where he could once again, even at 37, be in the MVP discussion.īut everything needed to be perfect, and his bats weren’t.
All images are property the copyright holder and are displayed here for informational purposes only.“It’s as safe as I can keep it,” Votto says.Ī year ago, before this space became a storehouse for ash’s last stand, Votto was preparing for a pivotal season at first base for the Reds. Many historical player head shots courtesy of David Davis. Some high school data is courtesy David McWater. Some defensive statistics Copyright © Baseball Info Solutions, 2010-2022. Total Zone Rating and initial framework for Wins above Replacement calculations provided by Sean Smith.įull-year historical Major League statistics provided by Pete Palmer and Gary Gillette of Hidden Game Sports. Win Expectancy, Run Expectancy, and Leverage Index calculations provided by Tom Tango of, and co-author of The Book: Playing the Percentages in Baseball.
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