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by Today Show/NBC Universal - Eddie and Matthew Rollins talk to NBC’s Steve Patterson about teaming up together to create handcrafted bats for Anchor Bat Company.
]]>by Today Show/NBC Universal – Matthew Rollins and his father, Eddie, are the father-son duo behind Anchor Bat Company, making handcrafted wooden bats that have even been used by the big leagues.
Host: Willie Geist
Narrator: Steve Patterson
Producer: John Boxley
Editor: Ann Shannon
by Andrew Huang - Major League Baseball’s Players Weekend has a reputation for big personalities, and this year will be no different. From funky nicknames, to colorful, nontraditional uniforms, to custom equipment, there’ll be plenty of ways for players to put on a show. While Players Weekend is mostly about fun, it’s also an opportunity to bring attention to worthy causes.
For this year’s Players Weekend, Anchor Bat Company has partnered with an active duty U.S. Navy SEAL to produce 27 hand-painted bats. “About 8 months ago, I met Matthew Rollins from Anchor Bat Co. through a mutual friend. We struck up a friendship, and when he came to me with an idea to paint bats for Players Weekend, I thought it was a really great idea,” says the SEAL, whose identity cannot be disclosed for reasons of operational security. The bats are painted in irregular strips of green — camouflage, essentially. “They’re painted in the style we paint our ‘bats’ — our guns, our tools — for deployment,” says the SEAL.
This warrior’s involvement with Anchor Bat Co. and baseball goes beyond a chance meeting with Rollins. He grew up, as many do, steeped in the game. “I was a junior varsity and varsity player in high school, and I played three years in college. Unfortunately, I got by on hard work,” he laughs. He also has a personal connection to Major League Baseball: his little brother, gifted with talent as well as work ethic, now plays professionally.
It’s also a collaboration that is, at its core, steeped in shared values and a love for the game. “Matt and the principles his company is founded on are something that really fit with my personality and the things I believe in,” he says. “It goes back to when I was younger and having to work really hard to get good. What really changed my life was when I started playing baseball in high school. Everybody was so competitive that I had to find a different way to get on the field. That way was through hard work and dedication. That’s allowed me to get where I am today.”
And while his younger brother is a current Major Leaguer, this collaboration brings another element to his appreciation for baseball: “The love for the game is something I’ve never forgotten. It’s being rekindled by being able to do this, but in a different way. My experience with Anchor Bat Co. has been one of the great experiences of getting back involved with this game.”
And while these hand-painted bats are remarkable, one-of-a-kind works of art, they’re not just a vanity project. After Players Weekend, the bats will be auctioned off to benefit One More Wave, a nonprofit founded by former and active duty SEAL Team members. “The whole purpose of One More Wave is ocean therapy, and it goes back to a close friend I knew from Sniper School. He was one of the few talented enough and lucky enough to go to Snipers as a new guy,” the SEAL recalls.
“On his first deployment, his very first mission, he got shot and ended up losing his leg. When he lost his leg, he thought he lost the one thing he loved more than anything except for being in the Teams: surfing. His love for surfing is why he became a SEAL. He got into a funk, but he ended up meeting Alex West, a One More Wave co-founder, at a surf camp. Together, they came up with the idea to create a custom surfboard so my friend could keep surfing. That grew into making custom surfboards so that any disabled veteran can use ocean therapy to get them on a better path.”
As Players Weekend festivities commence, as we enjoy America’s pastime, these green-painted bats serve as a reminder of sacrifice, hard work, and persistence. These values — taught on baseball diamonds across the country — are also the values that sustain our service members as they rush headlong into harm’s way.
]]>by Andrew Huang; photos by Jeff Hall – Like most 19-year-olds, Nick Pratto is hungry. The Lexington Legends’ first baseman arrived in Greenville, SC, only 10 hours before at 2AM. Lunch is the first real meal he’s had since getting off the bus. He takes a few moments to look over a deli menu before settling on half-pound pastrami sandwich — “It sounds like enough food,” he laughs. Pratto is in Anchor Bat Co.’s hometown because the Legends are playing a four-game series against the Greenville Drive, and he’s taking the opportunity to grab lunch with Anchor Bat Co. founder Matthew Rollins.
From a distance, Pratto certainly looks the part of a professional ball player: 6’1”, 215 pounds, athletic. But up close, Pratto still looks every bit the teenager he is: his face is clean shaven and smooth; his eyes clear and bright. A boy’s face on a man’s body.
It’s an amusing contradiction, but Pratto’s youthfulness belies the groundedness of an old soul. Perhaps that shouldn’t be unexpected. Pratto has been in the spotlight for years. In 2011, at just 12 years old, Pratto hit a walk-off single to win the Little League World Series championship game against Japan. In 2015, he pitched Team USA to a gold medal in the U-18 Baseball World Cup.
Along the way, Pratto played in numerous national and international tournaments and collected the kinds of media accolades befitting such promising prep player. Leading up to the 2017 draft, his draft profile pegged him as a can’t-miss prospect: “Pratto has positioned himself as perhaps the best pure high school bat in the country. He's always shown an advanced approach at the plate and the ability to hit for average. What's allowed him to separate from the rest of the class is the added power he showed early this season.”
In short, the Huntington Beach, CA, native has dealt with outsized attention and expectations for nearly half of his life, and his success thus far has come, in part, from a humble perspective on his profession. “My job’s just to go play baseball. In the grand scheme of things, we’re playing a game,” he says. “You really can’t beat that.”
“I don’t pay attention to outside stuff,” he adds. “There’s always going to be pressure. But it doesn’t come from anyone but myself.” It sounds suspiciously like press conference boilerplate, but when Pratto talks about how he’s trained and prepared his entire life, it’s clear that his drive isn’t just something he talks about.
Take, for example, his daily schedule during his senior year at Huntington Beach High School. From 7AM until 1PM, it was class. Then baseball practice, supplemented with some work in the batting cage afterward. Afterwards, there was a lifting session with a trainer, with everything wrapping up around 6PM. And after a solid 11 hours on the go, Pratto would still find the motivation to hit some more with his dad when he got home from work.
“Working hard was just me having fun,” he says. “I had a couple buddies, and on summer days, we’d go to the beach, play video games, and then go hit in the cage for a couple of hours. It was just fun.” Pratto is also quick to disabuse the notion that any of those impromptu sessions were just for goofing off with friends. “Whenever I pick up a bat, there’s always a purpose behind it. There’s pleasure in trying to refine a swing, in the details.”
Even as a child, Pratto had already developed that drive: “I played everything as a kid: baseball, football, basketball, and lots of soccer, but I had a bad experience with soccer. I would be running around, and all the other kids would just be standing around picking grass.”
And, much like his senior year of high school, Pratto could always find an excuse to play baseball. “That was the sport I wanted to play every day. I was always asking my dad if we could go play catch, or if we could hit,” he says.
In essence, for Pratto, there’s no meaningful difference between playing baseball, working hard, and having fun. Even with the pressures that come with being a first round pick, he still can’t wait to warm-up, stretch, get in the cage, run drills, and all the other little, tedious things that go into his preparation. “Seriously, I look forward to going to the field every day,” he says.
But just because playing baseball is fun doesn’t mean the profession of being a baseball player is an easy one. “For me, it’s 140 games a year, and we do thousands of practice reps in a matter of days, but the baseball part isn’t even the grind. That’s what you look forward to. It’s the travel,” he says.
Pratto points to the previous night as an example. “Last night was a pretty standard night. We got in at 2AM after playing a 7PM game, but we’ve had some trips where we’re traveling through the night, sometimes until 5, 6, or 7 in the morning. I like routine and structure, and it can be hard finding routine and the rest you need when you’re getting in at odd hours and sleeping at odd hours.”
The more Pratto talks about baseball, the easier it is to forget how young he is. Certainly, he says all the right things about his dedication and love for the sport, but howhe says it — calm and level — suggests wisdom beyond his years. Pratto is a professional, in every sense of the word, at an age when his peers are still trying to figure out what life holds for them.
But then Pratto’s face cracks into a wide smile and chuckle. “My old roommate just sent me a picture of my lucky Power Rangers comb,” he says. It’s the comb he’s used since he was little, and he recently lost it. As it turns out, his roommate had accidentally packed it up when he moved out. “You better believe he’s sending me that comb back,” Pratto laughs.
As he finishes scarfing down his sandwich, the conversation drifts away from baseball and towards the off-season. “I’m missing things with my family when we play, but I always stay in touch,” he says. “But when I go home, I’m looking forward to In-n-Out the most. This is terrible, and it’s definitely a cheat day thing, but I’m going to get a 4x4 Burger: four patties, four cheese, no tomato, and maybe Animal Style Fries.”
Because even though he’s a professional, he’s also still very much a 19-year-old.
]]>by Mike Duprez, The Dispatch - When he was a young kid growing up, Austin Beck admired North Davidson players such as Levi Michael and aspired to be one of them.
He’s done that and then some.
It was just in June when Beck was drafted No. 6 overall by the Oakland A’s in the Major League Draft, which led to a franchise-record $5.3 million signing bonus.
On Wednesday, Beck was at Brenner Children’s Hospital in Winston-Salem signing autographs, unveiling his new signature souvenir bat and visiting with pediatric cancer patients. It’s something he has wanted to do ever since he met cancer patient Gavin Hill three years ago.
“It was a thrill,” Beck said. “It was a dream of mine to go up there and give back. Putting smiles on kids’ faces who are going through tough times, that are in dire need of uplifting. When I went up there it was a dream come true.”
Hill, an eighth-grader who will be at North Davidson next year, is also a baseball player. Like many other kids, he saw Beck play for the Black Knights.
That’s exactly the position Beck was in when he watched North stars like Zach White, Daniel Kassouf, Clay Watson and Michael.
But now he’s the celebrity and a rising star within the A’s system. Beck is currently listed as the No. 6 overall prospect in the A’s system. He’s comfortable with the expectations.
“It’s fun,” Beck said. “I used to look up to kids like Levi Michael when I was growing up. I always wanted to be like them and do what they were doing, play pro baseball. I just want to be a role model for all the kids that look up to me. It’s really exciting.”
Michael was himself a first-round draft pick in 2011 (30th overall) by the Minnesota Twins and has played in their organization for six years.
Beck hit .211 with 2 home runs and 28 RBIs for the rookie-level AZL A’s of the Arizona League following his signing. His numbers dramatically improved after a 4-for-45 start and he hit over .400 in the fall Arizona Instructional League.
After he got home for the offseason, Beck knew what he had to do.
“When I got back from Arizona, I knew I had to make this happen as soon as possible,” Beck said.
The new bat Beck showed off to the children is the Austin Beck Prospect Series benefiting pediatric cancer research. It is being produced by Anchor Bat Company, which is based in Greenville, S.C.
“It’s the same model I use in the games,” Beck said. “We’re putting it on sale to raise money for childhood cancer research and Brenner Children’s Hospital.”
And now it’s about getting ready for next season, which will be Beck’s first with a full-season team.
by Patrick Ferlise, Winston-Salem Journal - Swinging a glimmering green bat in the lobby, Austin Beck had a wide smile across his face as camera shutters clicked.
It was a North Carolina homecoming the Oakland Athletics’ prospect would likely never forget, as he met cancer patients Wednesday at Brenner Children’s Hospital to trade baseball stories and sign autographs.
But for Beck, this trip wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment venture. It all dates back to his career at North Davidson, where the outfielder forged a special bond three years ago with Gavin Hill, who is now 14 years old.
A fifth-grader at the time and an avid fan of Black Knights baseball, Hill was diagnosed with cancer and immediately asked to meet his favorite player — a standout centerfielder for the team he watched from the stands. The pair clicked instantly, and Beck made it a priority to make a positive impact on kids facing a similar fate to his friend. After a successful first season in the Oakland Athletics minor league system in Arizona, he finally felt he found the means and influence to give back.
“It’s always been a dream,” said Beck, now spending his rookie offseason back home in Lexington. “It’s kind of always something I’ve wanted to do when I found out (Hill) had cancer and was coming up here... When I made it, I knew this was going to be the first thing I would do.”
From the start, the pair spent at least three days per week together — having dinners at each other’s houses, sharing friendships and talking about the sport that brought them close. Years later, Hill’s most prized possession is a signed baseball from Beck’s time at North Davidson.
“I like to call it the first signed Austin Beck ball, and I have it sitting in my room right now,” said Hill, who was diagnosed in 2014 with neuroblastoma — a rare cancer for children his age — that developed in his stomach. “When I first started to really watch him play, I realized he’s going to be special.”
And Hill’s assessment was right. Since Beck was selected sixth overall in the 2017 MLB Draft, he’s scored 23 runs and had 32 hits with two home runs. His stepfather, Woody Wimmer, and mother, Diane, witnessed Beck sending a ball over the fence at Fitch Park in Phoenix.
While he’s making big swings, Beck isn’t using a Louisville Slugger as his weapon of choice. He’s partnered with family-owned Anchor Bat Co. — a father-and-son team based in Greenville, S.C., that broke into the baseball industry in 2012.
Since finding success in the rookie Arizona League, it’s given Beck a platform to raise funds for philanthropy recipients like Brenner Children’s Hospital. In early December, he debuted a limited-edition bat he designed with Anchor that will be sold for retail. Half of the proceeds generated will go to benefit cancer research.
And he brought the metallic green bat with him to Brenner Children’s Hospital, where patients held it and practiced swinging in the lobby. Wake Forest Medical Center has also partnered with Beck to auction the limited-edition piece to help kids like his “brother,” Hill, in fighting cancer at a young age.
“I kind of know what it’s like to feel down and to need somebody to be there for me,” said Beck, as he tried to relate to patients by describing an ACL tear in 2016. “It’s the littlest things like saying ‘hey’ to them, taking pictures, signing autographs that’ll make their day or it’ll make their life.”
And Hill knows all too well about the power of a support system. Now a year into full remission and coming up on his freshman year at North Davidson, he views Beck as the ultimate role model after his long battle with cancer.
“I always knew that I had him by my side and that everything was going to be all right,” said Hill, as he donned a small gold chain and long hair — a style similar to Beck’s. “There’s nothing cooler than being like my big brother.”
With Hill now playing travel ball as a catcher and outfielder, he and Beck can share stories of games with a bond brought together by a sport they both love.
]]>by Benjamin Jeffers, Upstate Business Journal - When Eddie Rollins started designing baseball bats, he wasn’t planning on one day trying to sell them to major league players. In fact, he didn’t even plan to sell the bats for money.
When his son Matthew was playing baseball as a teenager, Eddie looked at a wooden baseball bat and figured he could make one. He’s been crafting wood products for most of his life, so adding a baseball bat to his repertoire seemed like an easy thing to do.
“I didn’t think it’d be as difficult as turning anything else,” he said.
Soon, Matthew’s friends started asking for bats and Eddie accommodated them too. Now, years after Matthew’s baseball career ended in the minor leagues due to injury, the father-son duo has created Anchor Bat Company, and is looking to make it to the big leagues.
The design of the bat starts with the type of wood. Matthew said they use maple wood, which they source from a place near the National Baseball Hall of Fame. To gain a competitive advantage, Matthew said the Anchor duo focus on selling only top quality bats made from grade-A wood instead of producing a larger quantity of lower quality ones.
“It’s kind of ironic. We get it just outside of Cooperstown, N.Y., so we get it from where everybody hopes one day they’re going to be,” he said.
Out of a pallet of hundreds of pieces of wood, only several dozen may be acceptable to use for the bats they make, Eddie said.
Eddie said the design of the bat “makes all the difference,” so he must be very careful in crafting each bat . Using calipers, he will measure the entire length of the bat to make sure it meets the specification of each player. Some players like a flared handle while others prefer a larger knob at the end. Others may ask for a wider barrel or handle.
Besides creating the bat, the company made a conscious effort to design an easily recognizable logo, so people would instantly know what type of bat a player was using. Matthew said entire Internet sites are dedicated to discovering the equipment players are using, so he wanted a symbol that was universally recognizable. Plus, the anchor logo symbolizes the Christian faith he and his father share, being anchored in God, he said.
Anchor is banking on a major league contract to increase its already growing business. The company recently signed a deal with Valley League team Charlottesville Tom Sox in Virginia, and individual baseball players request tailor-made bats as well.
By next year, Matthew said, the company hopes to win approval from the MLB to sell baseball bats to major league players. The application for licensing costs about $14,000 dollars, and a $10 million insurance policy on top of that, he said.
Even younger players are increasing using wooden bats, Matthew said. He’s seen a growth in the wooden bat market over the past several years, with youth leagues trending toward using wooden bats over aluminum ones.
The company is a small operation out of a garage in Taylors, right now – but is one major league contract away from explosive growth, Matthew said.
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FOX Carolina - An Upstate startup is hoping to make it to the big leagues. The company is called Anchor Bats and is run by father and son duo, Eddie and Matthew Rollins.
They hand carve, sand, and paint each bat by hand inside Eddie Rollin's two-car garage at his home in Taylors. They said each bat is made of quality grade-A wood - something that can be hard to find.
"Making a bat is making a bat. One of the things we pride ourselves on is we get the best wood we can get," Eddie said. He also stated the idea first came about 10 years ago when he carved his first bat for Matthew, who at the time was playing baseball in high school and had his eyes set on the pros. He said in order to play in the pros he had to learn to hit with wood.
"I turned a few and they hit pretty good," Eddie said. Matthew's teammates took notice and soon he was making them for other players. "They started hitting and then it progressed into turning bats for teammates in college and summer ball," Eddie said.
Two years ago, the Rollins decided to turn their passion into a business and started Anchor Bat Company. Matthew says it was a hard decision, but in the end he decided to go all in. "We literally sold a ton of furniture in our house, we sold one of our cars, we are now a one-car family which is extremely difficult in the 21st century."
But Matthew said their hard work is starting to pay off. Just two years into their venture, he said the bats are already used by a multitude of players around the world.
"Division 1 baseball. Division 2. We have a ton of collegiate ball players that are using us all the way down to little leaguers," Matthew said.
Thanks to social media, professional players in countries like Australia and the UK are also using their bats. He says within the last six months, interest has grown stateside. "We had five clubs that wanted to purchase our product for Spring Training and for their Major League Club," Matthew said.
He credits the success to the bats' quality. "We're in the running with the top two and three companies that have been around for 75 years, that have been around for the last decade, that have been around for the last five," Matthew said.
The company hopes to make and sell 5,000 bats in 2015. And while they'll soon be moving to a new, bigger space down the road from his father's home, he says their focus will still be on quality.
©2015 FOX Carolina (Meredith Corporation)
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by Steven Tingle, TOWN Magazine – The first time Eddie Rollins made a baseball bat, his son Matthew wanted no part of it. At the time, Matthew was a high school senior and a talented baseball player who would go on to play college and professional ball. But teenagers are not known for their balanced judgment. “I wanted to be the cool kid,” Matthew says. “I didn’t want to swing some bat my father had made.” Matthew’s friends and teammates felt differently. “They kept telling me the bats were awesome,” Matthew says. “It was always, ‘Hey man, can you get your dad to make me a couple of bats?’” Not cool.
But oh, how things change. Now, some 13 years later, Matthew and his father are working together to produce some of the most consistent, high-quality bats on the market. The Anchor Bat Company is currently headquartered in a small garage in Taylors, but the two-year-old company is growing fast, and Matthew and Eddie hope to sell close to 5,000 bats this year. “We just signed a deal with the Charlottesville Tom Sox,” Matthew says, referring to a Valley League team in Virginia. “We beat out five other bat companies, and we were not only the smallest but also the most expensive.
It really gave us a confidence boost.” Matthew credits the company’s growth to the social media chatter from Anchor Bat fans all over the world. “We’ve taken orders from Australia, Canada, the Netherlands, and Belgium,” he says. “Our market is anyone who plays baseball.”
Like golf clubs and tennis racquets, baseball bats come in varying degrees of quality. Each bat starts out as a billet, a smooth cylinder of wood— generally ash—that resembles a table leg. Billets are graded A, B, or C, depending on the quality of the wood. Unlike most bat companies, Anchor uses only grade-A billets, which, according to Matthew, is almost unheard-of in the business. “For most companies, when they grow in quantity, they start cutting corners and their quality starts to suffer,” he says. “We want to provide the same quality, if not better, five years from now that we are right now.”
Matthew and Eddie are doers. Eddie, a carpenter by trade, will look at a guitar or farmhouse table and say, “I think I can make that,” and then proceed to go and make it. That’s how this whole bat business started. And Matthew is tenacious. While researching top-quality billets, he called the Louisville Slugger plant in Pennsylvania every day for a month before someone finally took his call—only to give him a different number, which he called for another three weeks. “It’s what we have to do,” he says. “It’s all about time, energy, and effort.” The marks of a good sport.
(photo credit: Paul Mehaffey)
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by Mykal McEldowney, The Greenville News – Cut to order prime maple billets arrive from a sawmill that sits just a few miles from Cooperstown, New York.
With lathe and chisel, Eddie Rollins, co-owner of Anchor Bat Co., finds center, mounts and begins to shape each billet into a symbol of America's pastime.
"He can make anything and everything," said Matthew Rollins, Eddie's son and fellow owner of the Greenville-based company. "It just comes to him naturally and when it comes to bats, same thing."
Matthew's love for the game of baseball started at age four but didn't end after high school ball, college ball at North Greenville and a short stint in independent professional ball.
From that, the father and son pair saw a need for better consistency with wooden bats.
"Ten years ago my dad and I started toying with the idea of starting a bat company," said Matthew. "Ten years ago I didn't think it was that great of an idea. Five years ago he didn't think it was that great of an idea. Two years ago we both came to the conclusion if we're going to do it, now is the time."
Matthew and his wife debated for months. There were no more what ifs.
"My wife never watches baseball but now she's watching to see what other guys are using and saying, 'Hey I think we can get them to use Anchor,'" said Matthew.
Symbolic of their Christianity and easily recognizable, the Rollins chose an anchor as their logo, found twice on each bat. The first on the knob, burned on at 900 degrees, the other hand painted at the end of the handle near the barrel.
"From prior work experience we've had the blessings of being around a lot of high profile major league athletes and/or the agents that represent them," said Matthew. "From that, we have five or six organizations looking forward to using us in 2015 spring training."
Without naming names, Rollins said other high profile Major League all-stars, both in the American and National league, have shown interest in using Anchor in the 2015-16 season.
"We're down to a one-car family, we've sold any kind of furniture we had payments on, we've sold just about anything that isn't attached to our walls or nailed to the floor to continue to pursue the dream," said Matthew.
In the next 24 months, Anchor hopes to be nationally recognized with big leaguers swinging their bats.
"We've put, literally, every dime that we have, both my dad and myself, into it," said Matthew. "We've made the sacrifice and it's starting to work."
Greenville Online | A Gannett Company
(photo credit: Mykal McEldowney)
]]>GREENVILLE, SC – Anchor Bat Company, a new boutique wood baseball bat company, is swinging for the fences to provide the highest quality bats for the Major League Baseball All-Star, the player just starting his career, and everyone in between.
During his college and professional baseball career, co-founder Matthew Rollins noticed something was missing in the increasingly crowded world of wooden bats. “Many manufacturers say all of their bats are MLB quality,” he said, “but few actually deliver.” In 2013, he and his father decided to use their passion for America’s pastime and do something about it by launching Anchor Bat Company.
Every bat is handcrafted from start to finish and made from only the highest quality maple in North America. “Everything from the way our bats are made to the way we package them in hand sewn burlap sacks points to our dedicated craftsmanship,” said Rollins.
The same level of craftsmanship is applied every time to every bat, so that Anchor Bat Company can deliver wooden bats that are harder and more compact, providing the perfect tool needed by every batter no matter the skill level. “We are striving for consistency and standards,” said Rollins. “Unfortunately, professional players often pay the least for a bat and get the best, while others pay the most and get the least. We want to deliver a product that is literally MLB quality for every client.”
Numerous college and high school players already use Anchor, while several dozen MLB players are waiting on their chance to swing the handmade bats. They will soon get their opportunity with Anchor Bat Company anticipating MLB approval in early 2016.
Former MLB first round draft pick and current college coach, Landon Powell, knows what it takes to be successful at the highest level, and for him Anchor bats provide just that. “Anchor bats are some of the best new wood bats on the market,” he said. “They are hard, balanced, and hand crafted to your specifications. I expect them to be a force in MLB and become one of the most sought after bats in the industry.”
1998 World Champion, Darren Holmes, spent over a decade in the majors and is currently serving as bullpen coach for the Colorado Rockies. For Darren, Anchor is different than the rest. “Anchor focuses on unparalleled quality versus quantity,” he said. “From their top-of-the-line wood, to the personal attention each customer receives, Anchor is quickly becoming the bat anyone from the pro level to travel ball can count on.”
Within three to five years Rollins says he would like Anchor to be considered one of the premier boutique wood bat companies. Eventually, he would like to be recognized as the industry standard. “In 15 years we want other companies striving to make a product that compares to ours.” The drive for excellence and consistency flows from Rollins’ faith. He strongly believes I Corinthians 10:31 (“Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do everything for God’s glory”) applies to everything from sourcing premium wood to exceeding customer expectations.