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Think spring training is laid-back? Ask a bat salesman

Jonah Birenbaum / theScore

SARASOTA, Fla. - By the second week of March, the already languid pace of spring training has slowed to an insufferable level for most everyone involved.

That isn't the case for Brad Taylor.

As the director of professional sales for Phoenix Bats, one of the lesser-known bat companies approved to vend to MLB teams, Taylor can't afford to squander a single day during spring training. It's a precious six-week window to market his product line in person and cultivate relationships with the industry's most important customer base.

"During the season, it's very tough," Taylor said from outside the Toronto Blue Jays' clubhouse at Dunedin Stadium, flanked by a display table featuring a plethora of bats of various models, sizes, and colors. "We're not even really allowed to be in the ballparks for the regular season since we're not the official bat of professional baseball. They police that. So you can get on the field for batting practice and talk to your guys, but there's really not much else you can do.

"Right now is definitely a very key time for all of us in the bat business."

Phoenix Bats, an Ohio-based outfit that became pro-approved in 2000, only generates about 10 percent of its revenue from pro sales. But landing an established big-leaguer or burgeoning All-Star can do wonders for a company's profile, so Taylor spends virtually all of spring training driving across Florida and Arizona to set up shop and showcase his wares for as many clubs as possible, in search of both major- and minor-league clients.

One day in Dunedin. The next in Clearwater. Tampa after that. And so on. It's exhausting. Expensive, too.

"It's a big commitment," said Taylor, a self-described "road warrior" who will continue visiting clubs in both states through March 24. "The licensing fee is about $14,000. So you got to pay that up front before you can even get out here and talk to guys."

Jonah Birenbaum / theScore

Sam Bat, the pioneering maple-bat company based in Ottawa, Ontario - and propelled by Barry Bonds from boutique to big-league - is a more established purveyor. That means Ben Milinkovich and Alfred Maione, Sam Bat's delegates down south, won't stay at spring training quite as long as Taylor, but their schedule is no less demanding.

"We're in Florida for seven days and Arizona for seven days, and we're seeing, I think, nine teams in each state," Milinkovich, director of team sales, explained. "Florida's tough because of the driving. You got to have a good schedule to see more than one (team) in a day. There's got to be basically a night game, or (you have to) be at a field where they're split. ...

"Arizona's a little bit easier for the day game/night game because the longest drive you're going to have (between complexes) is 45 minutes."

And when he arrives, he's not likely to be the only vendor. Competition in the space has increased dramatically over the last decade and a half.

In 2005, when Maione started making bats for Sam Bat, he estimated that about 15 suppliers were licensed to sell to MLB clubs and their affiliates. Now there are 42.

The top six or seven companies account for roughly 80 percent of all pro sales, Maione said, and aren't poised to relinquish their market share anytime soon, leaving a glut of suppliers with only a small piece of the pie to fight over, at least with respect to the game's biggest names.

"I just think it's a 'sexy' business to get into, especially for ex-ballplayers," Milinkovich said when asked what's behind the ongoing explosion. "Guys see stuff on TV and think that they can be the next big thing."

Of those 42 companies, at least half have reps on the road from late February through at least early March, making the display area outside the home clubhouse at each spring training complex far more cramped than it used to be.

"This is my fourth or fifth year, and the first couple years, it would be rare to be out with someone else," Milinkovich said. "And this year, we've had one day, I think, where we were the only ones."

Taylor said, "There are times where you do kind of feel like, 'OK, well maybe if I was here by myself, how much different would this day be?' … We all have the same goal in mind. We all want to see our bats on TV. We all want to sell more bats. But I would say it's healthy (competition)."

Mark Cunningham / Getty Images Sport / Getty

By the time they get to the big leagues, many players have developed a loyalty to a specific bat company, or at least a specific bat profile. Others are always willing to experiment, and even certain professed loyalists, like Blue Jays center fielder Kevin Pillar, can be converted through circumstance.

"I'd always come up with a model of a bat at the beginning of the year, and I’d swing it," Pillar said. "And finally it got to a point (a few years ago) where it was more out of fatigue (that) I needed a little bit lighter bat, so I started swinging (teammate) Devon (Travis') bat and kind of fell in love with the model of the bat.

"You just pick it up one time and it feels good," he said. "Now it's just a comfort thing."

Taylor hopes that someone walking by on his way to the field or the cage - loyalist or not - will pick up one of his bats and have that same epiphany.

"It's a little bit more of relaxed atmosphere at the beginning of camp when we're out here visiting. It's a great time just to show products, maybe have a couple guys come by and talk to you," he said. "And you can kind of show them what you're doing that's new, or even get a couple sample bats made up for them so they can have something to swing on hand just to get kind of a reference point for who we are."

Trying to lure in big-leaguers is a low-percentage endeavor, though. That's why Taylor spends a considerable amount of time on the minor-league side of each camp, where players aren't as set in their ways.

"If you can interact with a player when he's in Low-A or High-A, Double-A, before he gets up here in this environment," he explained, "you've got a better chance of creating that relationship because a lot of time when guys get up here, they just get so set in what got them here that they don't want to vary off that path."

Ultimately, Taylor doesn't measure a successful spring by units sold. Not anymore. Spring training's about laying the groundwork.

"It's a relatively stressful time for me," Taylor said. "But I've been trying to really kind of work on that … I've learned quickly that if I come to camp and talk to one person, that's a win. Because there's been several times where I've gone to a camp and (didn't) talk to a single person, and I would just go home and beat myself up. And I've learned over the years, if that happens, you just got to move on because you can't let that - especially with me being on the road for a month - start to bleed over into every single day."

Jonah Birenbaum is theScore's senior MLB writer. He steams a good ham. You can find him on Twitter @birenball.

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