When were maple bats introduced to Major League Baseball?
It’s tough to know the exact date, but Holman says Joe Carter first used a maple bat in a major league game in 1997. Holman, a carpenter from Ottawa, Canada, first met Blue Jays scout Bill MacKenzie in a local watering hole where Holman was asked to make a maple bat. By the end of the 1996 season, Holman and McKenzie went to the Triple-A Ottawa Lynx and got Fernando Seguignol to use a maple bat. Holman thinks Seguignol is the first professional player to homer with a maple bat. By the next season, word about maple bats had spread and big leaguers with the Blue Jays asked for a shipment. Schapp says he first noticed players using maple in 1998, and a year later, Louisville Slugger began production of maple bats.
