Jack White Invests in Baseball Bat Company – Pitchfork Media

Jack White is a noted baseball fan. In 2009, he helped refurbish Detroit’s Clark Park, and last year, he got his own baseball card commemorating his 2014 first pitch at a Detroit Tigers game. Now, White has become a co-investor and co-partner in Warstic, an independent sporting goods company that makes wood and metal baseball and softball bats. He joins founder and former minor league baseball player Ben Jenkins, as well as Tigers second baseman Ian Kinsler at Warstic. In a press release, White said “there is a lot of room to explore aesthetic ideas in just baseball alone that can bring beauty and purpose to the weapons that athletes use to accomplish their goals.” Jenkins added that he’s excited to have White’s “tenacious appetite for pushing the boundaries of art, even within sports” at Warstic. Read White and Jenkins’ full statements below.

Jack White:

I discovered the Warstic company through my love of design….I was drawn to what Ben Jenkins was doing at Warstic by the simplicity and harshness of the designs. Most baseball bats and equipment in the sports world do not impress me much, but I think that there is a lot of room to explore aesthetic ideas in just baseball alone that can bring beauty and purpose to the weapons that athletes use to accomplish their goals. This can be accomplished not only through form following function, but also to bring in outsider ideas into the zone of athletics steeped in history and sometimes bogged down by its own weight. Warstic is incredibly inspiring to me in this fashion, and I think we can make beautiful objects for not only professionals, but also young children just beginning to understand how important the tools of the trade are to their passion for competition.

Warstic founder Ben Jenkins:

Warstic is not trying to be for everyone…and it’s about more than sports. The concept of balance is crucial to everything we do. Ian is a great representation of what our brand is about on the player side and I’m excited to have his experience, knowledge, talent, and work ethic on our team. On the other side, Jack represents our love and appreciation of sports as fans, of not just making things, but our willingness to make new things that have never been seen before. We are excited to have not only his support but also his tenacious appetite for pushing the boundaries of art, even within sports. That, after all, is what Warstic is about.

Revisit Jack White’s first pitch: