Jack White Takes a Swing at the Baseball Bat Business
Jack White usually wields a mighty guitar, but now he is wielding a mighty Warstic baseball bat. Why? We’d love to think it’s because all rock stars really want to be sports icons and all sports icons really want to be rock stars, but the reality is that this is just a rad business move for the rocker.
White, alongside Detroit Tigers infielder Ian Kinsler, have become investors and partners on Warstic, a company founded by former minor league baseball player, Ben Jenkins.
“I discovered the Warstic company through my love of design,” explained White in a press release. “I was drawn to what Ben Jenkins was doing at Warstic by the simplicity and harshness of the designs. Most baseball bats and equipment in the sports world do not impress me much, but I think that there is a lot of room to explore aesthetic ideas in just baseball alone that can bring beauty and purpose to the weapons that athletes use to accomplish their goals. This can be accomplished not only through form following function, but also to bring in outsider ideas into the zone of athletics steeped in history and sometimes bogged down by its own weight. Warstic is incredibly inspiring to me in this fashion, and I think we can make beautiful objects for not only professionals, but also young children just beginning to understand how important the tools of the trade are to their passion for competition.”
One of Warstic’s most recognizable clients is Josh Donaldson of the Toronto Blue Jays. You may recognize him as the dude that smacks a ton of balls hundreds of feet in the air, out of stadiums. Oh, and he won the American League Most Valuable Player honour last year. He’s kind of a big deal.
