Checked Swing

An Easton Bat Maker Made It to the Big Leagues. Then He Got Benched.

EASTON, Md.

The man loves his lathe.

It's a great green metal machine, a Torreda PA-400 E made in Barcelona. Mike Randolph watches, wonder-filled, as a seven-pound block of wood spins between the drive point and tail stock and, as if by miracle, a 32-ounce version of loveliness appears: a baseball bat.

For the past several years, Randolph has been turning out these beauties from his little shop in Talbot County, on the Eastern Shore.

Some consider him a bat master. "The quality of his bats is superior to every other I've ever used," says Richard Huber of the National Adult Baseball Association. The group buys about 200 of Randolph's signature Chesapeake Thunder wooden bats a year.

The funny thing is, Randolph never played the sport much, except for a street game here and there. But he's sort of The Natural when it comes to wood. He's an artist with ash, a Michelangelo with maple. So when he began making bats, he shared a few with some players and before he knew it other players were placing orders. Minor leaguers swung his black models and major leaguers used his two-tones and life was good and business buzzed and the flow of the game was going Randolph's way.

Then that confounded letter from Major League Baseball arrived and the world . . . stopped . . . turning.

But we're getting ahead of ourselves.

Just east of Easton, two farms sit side by side -- Shady Side and Sunny Side. You'll find Mike Randolph on the Sunny Side. By all accounts he's a hardworking man. Wispy gray-blond hair and beard, pale blue eyes, in pale blue jeans and a multicolored, striped shirt, turned tan by sawdust: He's 51, built compactly, drives a pickup and today he's hurting a little because he just had eight teeth yanked.

Randolph started crafting fine furniture when he was 18 and living in Tennessee. He got married and he and his wife, Cynthia, moved to the Eastern Shore to be near her family. His company, Talbot Turnings, is a one-room workshop on the old family property. It smells wood-chip crisp and machine-oil acrid. Over the years, he says, "I've made just about everything." He drops the "y" in "everything."

Photos on the wall attest to skills: a gun cabinet, a bookcase, a roll-top desk that sold for $3,500. He has built with cherry, maple, oak. "People used to want real high-quality furniture," he says. "Seems like they started veering toward Wal-Mart."

As the fancy furnishings market vanished, Randolph adapted. He began assembling and finishing pieces for the Bartley Collection, a do-it-yourself furniture company. "I'd rather have built the furniture myself," he says.