SUN CITY – In the Sun City softball league, one thing is virtually certain at almost all games: Don Keene will be in the bleachers watching. “In the last six years, I’ve probably watched all but a handful of games,” he says. “I can’t play, so I watch.” He is undoubtedly the most faithful spectator at any of Sun City’s many sporting events.
The bat featured here was designed and crafted by Sun City resident Don Keene as a fiftieth birthday present for Sun Day managing editor Chris La Pelusa’s brother. (Photos by Chris LaPelusa/Sun Day)
A stroke in 2004 prevents him from playing the sport he enjoys most, but it hasn’t prevented him from participating in it in two unique ways.
As he sits and watches games, he is not only enjoying the action and cheering for his favorite team, he’s doing some creative observation and visual research. “I watch guys swing the bat and observe how far and where they hit the ball, and I can usually figure out if they need a lighter or heavier bat,” he says.
At that point, he becomes Don, the bat guy. Or to put it in a less flip way, enter Don, the bat-making carpenter. Keene is a one-man, customized, Louisville Slugger-style softball bat maker, specializing in custom-made bats for his softball-playing buddies. “I’ve made about 10 bats for softball players here, and I currently have orders to do about nine more,” he says as he finished a bat-making session in the Millgrove Woodshop. “My latest one is a present for a man’s 50th birthday.” He displayed the bat, which looks and feels like a heavier version of a bat used in Major League Baseball.
“I made my first bat for a player named David “Ozzie” Osborne,” Keene recalls. “Right after that, guys started coming to me and asking if I could make a bat for them. They typically tell me they’d like a bat like so-and-so uses. Sometimes they have definite, specific ideas on how heavy or long it should be. In 16-inch softball like we play in the Sun City leagues, you can use any size bat you want, and most players develop their own unique specifications. It takes me two four-hour sessions of woodworking in the shop, plus a 10-day to two-week waiting period to check the wood’s quality and strength, to do each one.”
Keene inherited his interest and expertise in carpentry and woodworking from his father and both grandfathers, all of whom were carpenters. “From the time I was able to stop dragging the hammer along the ground and carry it, I was doing carpentry under the guidance of my father and his father,” he says. “During my career, I could only pursue woodworking on weekends, so I started making all sorts of things. I used to make ink pens out of wood or acrylic, and I still have a collection of them. I made them as presents for friends, and now I’m making bats for the same purpose.” He starts with a 4×4 piece of white ash wood, cuts it into a three-inch square pieces about 40 inches long, and then shapes the bat on a lathe. “The typical bat is just under three inches in diameter at its thickest point, and then it’s a matter of shaping it down to the handle according to the shape and thickness that a player wants,” he says.
Keene grew up in Watseka, a small town 30 miles south of Kankakee in Illinois. He played softball in high school and later earned a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering at the University of Illinois. “I’ve been interested in three things in my life,” he says. “Engineering, woodworking, and softball. I’m still doing two of them. I got in bat-making when I came to Huntley in 2005.”
He was president of the Woodchucks Charter Club at Sun City, an organization of carpenters and woodworkers like himself. When he isn’t at softball games or watching pro football games on TV, he is at the shop, making a bat or some other wood product for someone. If he keeps it up for another year or two, most of the bats used in the softball league will be his creations.
Keene also has some definite opinions on which bats belong where in the various parts of baseball and softball. “Wood bats belong to professional baseball. Aluminum bats belong to college baseball. There is not that much difficulty in players switching from aluminum bats to wood ones when they come out of college into pro ball. Aluminum bats are good for 12-inch softball like they play in high schools and colleges. Finally, there needs to be more regulation of aluminum bats for younger players in little leagues.”
Don Keene, the bat guy. Who knows? He might help you wallop a home run some day.
