EL PASO, Texas (KTSM) – El Paso has had its fair share of big leaguers over the years, but a bat company based in the Sun City is gaining momentum amongst Major League Baseball (MLB) players.
PowerBull Bat Company is El Paso’s only MLB bat supplier. The company was established in 2003 by Raul Salazar in Mexico. In 2019, the company moved to El Paso and received their MLB license where they are manufacturing bats for the likes of Javier Baez, Andrew Knizner, Franchy Cordero, and Franmil Reyes, just to name a new.
“People think of a wood bat and wonder how difficult could it be to make, but Major League Baseball is very regulated it terms of what we can and cannot do — even down to the colors you can paint a bat,” said co-owner Kurt Gross. “We’ve made bats for a lot of pro players, but we focus on the up-and-coming players — the minor leaguers and next generation of pro players, but that’s not to say pro players aren’t using our bats in the big leagues.”
Salazar and Gross get their wood from Upstate New York where the winters are cold and the wood is dense. Their goal is to grow the company, naturally, but not too quickly.
“We want to maintain our growth so that we never get too big. We never lose that person touch with the players,” said Gross.
PowerBull Bat Company is one of only 37 licensed bat suppliers for the 2020 MLB season.
