Just wanted to say hi since I’m the new guy, and hit you up with a quick little post since we had a morning game today and I’ve got the whole afternoon to kick it at home. I’m Maxx Tissenbaum, I’m now a catcher with the Tampa Bay Rays Class A Florida State League affiliate the Charlotte Stone Crabs. I was originally drafted by the Padres and spent two seasons with them before being traded over the off season…I’ve loved this site since my college ball days when I was at Stony Brook in New York, I always thought it was cool to get an inside look at what guys have cool gear in pro ball…So now I get to bring that to you, with a side order of some Tampa Bay Rays minor league rules which I’ll lay out here first so you’re not disappointed over the season
- We all have to wear our pants up, its not a choice…Until we make our Big League debut it’s high socks, which eliminates a LOT of cleat options since high tops and high socks is sort of iffy at best
- We have to wear black and white cleats, no colors…Even our shoe laces have to be black, so no crazy custom colorways like you see some of the Big League dudes wearing
So, here goes…I was sitting at my locker one of the last days of Spring Training and I happened to be right across from one of the bat racks and I sort of half paying attention took a picture of it thinking it looked kind of cool with all the bats. I didn’t really go back until a couple days later to sort of check in and see who’s swinging what, but I’ve got kind of a rough list of some guys from my Spring Training room and now the Stone Crabs lineup.
There’s a TON of dudes swinging Chandler Bats
Tommy Coyle, Pat Leonard, Josh Sale, Marty Gantt who normally hit 3-6 in our lineup all swing em, as well as Kean Wong, Colton Wong’s younger brother. Kean swings a custom cut model made for his brother, but they each have his own signature on the barrel.
Tommy, Pat, Josh and Marty all swing standard models, 271/243/271/243 (in order by name).
I think the next most popular is Louisville Slugger, which is pretty much a pro ball standard given that each team gets hundreds of ash bats from them every year and each guy gets those for free…Kes Carter, a first round pick out of Western Kentucky swings an S318 in all black maple and has been absolutely ON FIRE lately.
I’m swinging Zingers this year, a 374 model which is similar in a lot of ways to the S318, but with a different handle and knob. I ordered my box split, 6 maple and 6 ash to try the different wood out…Maples are all natural handle with a mahogany barrel and the ash bats are flat black handle with flame tempered barrels (a SICK color combo) with my personal “model number” 416 on them…416 is my area code back home in Toronto so I figured it would be a solid model number for me
I’ll have a review of the Mine Bats that Dan wrote about also as I get to bust one out the next few days on the road, so stay tuned for that and more!
Little Pblo action goin on ftb
You bet, Toronto Mets from 2007-2009!
You guys should do a feature on Alex Gordan the guy has some sick gear! Also what cleats is Mike Moustakas wearing in the game against the twins on 4-18-14?
great to see a fellow canadian and PBLO competitor, London Badgers baby!