Kurt Ainsworth describes Marucci Sports' landmark partnership with Major League Baseball, designating Marucci and its brand Victus as official bats.
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Ainsworth: Competitors admitted targeting Marucci to slow its market share growth
“There's no question. We've had conversations with some of those other companies across, over the years, and they said, we could take some hits from some smaller companies, but what you guys did, y'all were taking so much market share, you know, we kind of had …”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Ainsworth: Legacy bat competitors shipped dozens where few were game-ready
“We saw that the other competitors in the space were sending out, you know, 12 bats to a player when they'd order a dozen players, and only three or four of them would be good enough to use in a game.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Ainsworth: Competitors' bats also failed lab tests, but only Marucci was decertified
“We then took bats from the field, sent them to the lab, and they were all over the limit, but nobody else was decertified but us,”
Assertion Supported
Ainsworth: Marucci and Victus both surpassed Louisville Slugger in MLB usage
“As we surpassed Louisville Slugger, I think in 2013, they surpassed Louisville Slugger in 2018 is the number two bad and used by major league players, I should say.”
Insight
Ainsworth: Training with wooden bats makes players better hitters with aluminum bats
“If you can learn how to hit with a wooden bat and find the sweet spot on that, when you pick up your aluminum or your composite bat, you're going to be a better hitter.”
Assertion Partly supported
Ainsworth: A hammer drives nails into ash bats, but bends on maple
“Maple's just a harder wood, and if you really
You know, show people a player comes in, you could take a nail with a hammer and drive it right into an ash bat. You take that same nail and try to put it in a maple bat. It's going to bend the nail and you show a…”