HANEYS TO ENTER CHAMBER HALL OF FAME

At Cooperstown Bat,

Best Yet To Come

By LIBBY CUDMORE

COOPERSTOWN – At Cooperstown Bat Company, it’s the sound of success.
“We have noticed a difference in the sound of the ball coming off of our bats,” said owner Tim Haney. “We know that the process in how we slowly dry the wood gives the bat a different sound. You can hear the difference.”
Cooperstown Bat is one of this year’s six inductees into the third annual Cooperstown Chamber of Commerce Business Hall of Fame Thursday, March 28, at Brewery Ommegang.
“We have a big following and we know we were voted in,” said Tim. “It’s great for us to be a part of the community. I love that part.”
In 1981, there were no bats made locally. Don and Sharon Oberriter, who ran Obie’s where Pioneer Patio is now, began selling souvenir bats, and they become so popular they opened the bat company in the tiny building between the restaurant and The Farmers’ Market.
Tim joined the company in 1993 and worked with Don to expand their offerings and create personalized bats.
When the Oberriters decided to retire in 2008, it was a natural fit to sell the business to Tim. He had been with the company for about 15 years and had been a big part of the growth. Don and Sharon felt Tim was the right person to take over.

So did Tim’s wife, Connie: “Tim is the visionary and the hardest-working person in the company.”
The Haneys have taken the bats beyond the streets of Cooperstown. One of their bats was used in the World Series this year by Red Sox catcher Christian Vázquez.
“We go from team to team checking in with the players that use our bats and make sure that the bats are okay and that the players have what they need,” he said. “We try to introduce ourselves to new players and see if they would like to give our bats a try.”
About 25 players in the majors use our bats and including the minor leagues between 350 to 400 players throughout all of professional baseball.
All the bats are made in a factory in the old Hartwick depot, and all of our wood comes from a 300-mile radius of Cooperstown. In 2017, the Haneys started their own milling company, Sawyer Ridge in the old Phillip’s lumberyard to make billets – the blank lengths of wood out of which the bats are lathed.
The bats are primarily maple, but they also use ash and yellow birch.
And they’ve done so well that they’re expanding. The couple is in the planning stages to build a 25,000-square-foot expanded facility next to Sawyer Ridge milling facility.
It’s planned that the Hartwick manufacturing facility will move into the new larger space, but the current plant will be used in some fashion.
They even plan on installing a full-sized baseball diamond with turf and batting cages. Visitors would be able to see the entire process of making bats and perhaps visit a museum showing the history of the company.
This year they will be joining the Cooperstown Farmers’ Market, the Cooperstown Fire Department, The Baseball Hall of Fame, Pathfinder Village, and Stagecoach Coffee in the Business Hall.
“We are very established, we are involved in the community,” said Connie.
“This is home for us, our children grew up here, we give back locally, and we feel like we are part of the community. Plus making and selling bats is a perfect fit with the Baseball Hall of Fame.”