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John Dingle shapes the handle of a wooden bat on a lathe in his Verona woodshop. He was inspired to start his custom baseball bat company, Dingbat, after the death of his grandfather, who made applewood bats for Dingle and his brothers.

The last surviving bat made by Dingle's grandfather, who died in 2006, is displayed at the Dingbat workshop.

As children, John Dingle and his three brothers often visited their grandpa's apple orchard in Richland Center.

A woodworker who turned out bowls and platters on a lathe, Roy Dingle would make baseball bats out of applewood harvested from dead trees on the orchard to keep his sports-obsessed grandsons entertained.

"We would test them out right there on the orchard," John Dingle said. "They wouldn't last very long because they just weren't the right wood for baseball bats."

Today — inspired by his grandfather, who died in 2006 — Dingle makes his own baseball bats under his company Dingbat, selling hand-shaped, custom maple bats throughout the Madison area and south-central Wisconsin. And next to the front door of his workshop in Verona — a refurbished 1930s-era Trachte building formerly home to the town blacksmith — hangs a slightly warped applewood bat.

"A lot of them didn’t survive, except for the last one right here," Dingle, 45, said. "That is the last bat my grandpa made that’s still alive."

Dingle started Dingbat in the basement of his Madison house 15 years ago, producing about 50 bats a year. When his friend and Verona High School baseball coach, Brad D'Orazio, graduated law school in 2018, Dingle gifted him a custom baseball bat.

In return, D'Orazio got Dingle a laser engraver and was then "roped in" to becoming a partner in Dingbat, said D'Orazio, who had no prior experience with a lathe.

The duo can now churn out 300 to 400 baseball bats a year, which come in three adult models, a youth model, lighter-weight bats for coaches, or as a trophy bat. Most bats are sold online through Dingbat's website, but the company began selling at the Madison Mallards' Duck Pond this past season and has bats in stock at a few other area retailers.

Dingle buys the maple wood needed to make a baseball bat, which arrives as a 3-inch dowel referred to as a billet or a blank, from a New York supplier. Each bat takes about 45 minutes to shape on the lathe and 2 or 2½ hours in total to completely finish, including varnishing, painting and engraving, said Dingle, who is married with two sons.

D'Orazio's connections to the local baseball scene have allowed the business to expand, which now supplies a majority of the teams in the Home Talent Baseball League and sells bats to other amateur adult leagues.

Dingle, a former teaching pro at Vitense Golfland for 12 years, still works a full-time job in property management. He characterizes his woodworking, which also includes making signs, Christmas ornaments and other décor, as a "side hustle."

"A lot of people want a local product, to support a local business," Dingle said. "I like to think that we have a pretty good product. We haven't really had to deal with a lot of breakage. I think our customers are very happy with our product."

How did the business start?

After (my grandpa) passed, I decided that I was going to buy a lathe and just teach myself how to use it. I started off just making bowls and platters and stuff like that, just like he did. I started doing that and baseball wasn't really on my radar as far as making baseball bats. My kids were too young, and I wasn't playing. Out of the blue, a childhood friend of mine called me and said, "Hey do you want to play men's amateur baseball league with me?" and I said, "Well, I haven't touched a baseball in 15 years, but I'll give 'er a go." My friend said it's wood bat only, and immediately the lightbulb went off in my head, and I was like, "OK, I've got to make myself a baseball bat." That's pretty much how it started.

How did you come up with the name Dingbat?

The minute I told myself I was going to make baseball bats, Dingbat was the second thought. I just kind of knew right away it was not gonna be a one-time thing, that I would start making them for the team and the league.

Were you into woodworking before buying a lathe?

A little bit. My father and one of my brothers did a lot of furniture. I would make furniture when it was necessary for me. I wasn't making it and selling it, I was making it for myself. So projects like that, I'm a kind of do-it-yourselfer type person.

What goes into selecting a billet?

They basically come to us just as a 3-inch dowel, and they come in a variety of lengths and weights ... Since we're a custom bat company, we pick the appropriate blank for that customer. So if they want a light bat, we got to pick a light stock. Even though these are all the same dimensions, they come in from 75 ounces to 100 ounces. It's such a huge difference, and that's just the density of the wood. The other important thing is we got to make sure the grain in straight, otherwise they're going to break right away.

Is there any variation in the bats you turn?

It's basically just all by hand, and since they are by hand, they are kind of snowflakes. They may be a little off here and there, I guess that's the beauty of a handmade product. But I figure with all the thousands of bats we've made, we're pretty good at it. But basically we hit our benchmarks with the model and make that model best we can.

"After (my grandpa) passed, I decided that I was going to buy a lathe and just teach myself how to use it."

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Logan Wroge is a general assignment reporter for the Wisconsin State Journal. He has been with the newspaper since 2015.

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John Dingle shapes the handle of a wooden bat on a lathe in his Verona woodshop. He was inspired to start his custom baseball bat company, Dingbat, after the death of his grandfather, who made applewood bats for Dingle and his brothers.

The last surviving bat made by Dingle's grandfather, who died in 2006, is displayed at the Dingbat workshop.

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