The Story of Carlos Gonzalez's Home Run Derby Bat
If you watched the Home Run Derby on Monday, you probably noticed Carlos Gonzalez’s special edition bat. It was standing out among others because of its Venezuelan flag painted on the handle. It made a lot of noise on social media that night. Here is the story of the famous bat.
On July 5th, CarGo was elected to his third All-Star Game along with the other B45 Ambassador Jonathan Lucroy. Everyone at B45 was already very proud to see our two guys making it to the annual classic. Then, the phone rang at the factory.
“CarGo will participate in the Home Run Derby and he wants a crazy bat,” said our pro rep Kevin Young, who is close to the star player. The event was in only five days, so we had to start this masterpiece right away. Many ideas came from both CarGo and the staff at B45.
Last Thursday, he finally decided that he wanted to see his country flag appear on the bat. But not only a little flag engraved somewhere on the barrel. He wanted the bat to become a flag of its own.
Being used to handcraft bats with one or two colors at the maximum, our crew faced the challenge to create a bat with four layers of colors: a black barrel and a handle splitted in yellow, blue and red. Oh yeah, and the blue part has to have eight stars on it!
Stephane stayed late that night to finish the paint job. The next morning, Marc-André did the engraving step:
Model CG5
CarGo
2016 All-Star Game Home Run Derby
with a Venezuelan flag also engraved right next to it.
After a few tests in the paint room, our painting specialist Stephane found the impeccable recipe. While our COO Martin was busy cutting white stars, our bat maker Geofrey was finding the perfect billet to create the perfect Home Run Derby bat for our friend CarGo.
The bat was packed and traveled nearly 5000 kilometers (or 3000 miles if you prefer) from Quebec City, Canada to San Diego, USA.
Last Monday, everyone at B45 was watching the Home Run Derby on TV and was so proud to see their team creation stand out among the other contestants’ bats.
CarGo is part of our team and everyone at B45 rallied and worked hard to do something special for our teammate.
If you didn’t watch the Derby, here is the recap. CarGo hit 12 bombs in the first round, but it wasn’t enough to beat the defending champion Todd Frazier, who had 13. And, Giancarlo Stanton sent balls in outer space all night long.