By day, Rob Sellers works as a mild-mannered pharmacist at a Waco Wal-Mart. At nights and on weekends, he transforms into Batman.

No, the city of Waco hasn’t installed a bat signal to alert Sellers to perform crime-fighting duties, and his other car isn’t a Batmobile. Rather, he earned his nickname thanks to a woodworking hobby that has evolved into a budding business crafting handmade wooden baseball bats.

Sellers, 49, has been enthralled by woodworking since his high school days in Conroe. As a young man, he built primarily furniture, including several pieces that are still used in his family’s home in Robinson.

Robinson’s Rob Sellers carves a billet of wood into a bat in the shop behind his home.
Jerry Larson/Tribune-Herald

It wasn’t until he had kids that he went positively batty.

In 1995, Sellers bought an old lathe for his wood shop. His first project came out beautifully — a small, but precisely ornate staircase spindle.

“The only problem is, we live in a one-story house,” Sellers said. “So it was like, ‘What are you going to do?’ ”

His three children had begun playing baseball, so he came up with the idea of making a bat. He crafted his first in June of 1996, a mammoth club that he dubbed Big Bertha.

He and the kids had a great time playing ball with the bat, though it was a little too heavy. So Sellers made a second, smaller bat on July 4, calling it Uncle Sam, and a new hobby was born.

“Then I found this guy who could laser engrave, and that’s what turned it into a business,” Sellers said. “I was making bats all the time. I made one for my dad. His name was William Robert, and we called that one Billy Bob.”

Sellers estimates he spends about 10 hours a week in his woodshop behind his Robinson home, shaving and shaping bats for orders that have been placed with his business, Sellers Bat Company.

The bats are made from either ash or maple, which Sellers orders and has delivered to his home. The process begins with a large block, or billet, of wood, all of which have been measured, weighed and labeled. Sellers places the billet on his lathe and then uses a variety of carving knives to shave and sculpt a barrel, handle and knob into the spinning block of wood.

It takes Sellers about an hour and a half to carve a bat, including about 45 minutes devoted to sanding. Early on, there was a lot of trial and error, and a few bats didn’t make the cut.

“There have been some bats that have been burned, some thrown in the mud,” Sellers said, laughing. “I don’t know who did that.”

Sellers’ sidekick

Back in the late 1990s, a friend introduced Sellers to a Salado woodworker named Don Casey, who owned a laser engraver. For years, Sellers traveled to and from Salado to use Casey’s engraver to personalize his bats with logos and signatures. It was a time-consuming and often arduous process, and Sellers would generally spend six or seven hours at a time engraving a load of bats.

Jerry Larson/Waco Tribune-Herald

Last summer, though, he spent $12,500 on a second-hand laser engraver, which he placed in a small room off the family garage. He fittingly calls the room “Salado.”

“It’s been great having my own engraver,” he said. “Where I used to tell people that I could get their bats to them in two to three weeks, I now can complete them in two or three days.”

Besides making bats for customers and friends all over the country, Sellers has created a few special bats for various big-name athletes and politicians. Sellers, who graduated from pharmacy school at the University of Texas, crafted a bat in the summer of 1998 for UT running back Ricky Williams, emblazoned with the designation, “Ricky Williams, 1998 Heisman Trophy winner.”

Williams indeed won the college football’s most coveted individual trophy that year.

“No doubt he was motivated by the bat,” Sellers said, smiling.

Three years later, Sellers was inspired to sculpt a bat for George W. Bush after the former Texas governor had been elected president.

“I thought, ‘I’m going to make a bat for him, and I’m going to make three of them,’ ” Sellers said. “I’ll give him one, and I’ll keep two. . . . I just thought, ‘Could you imagine if my dad had had a Calvin Coolidge bat?’ For my children and grandchildren, I thought it was be cool to have a George W. Bush bat.”

From 1999 to 2003, Sellers was licensed by Major League Baseball to make bats for professional usage, and he produced a number of bats that were used by local minor league players like Quan Cosby and Jon Topolski. But the cost to stay licensed became exorbitant and Sellers opted not to renew, which he said turned out “to be a blessing.”

“It became too much. Guys were needing 20 bats at a time, and I’ve got a full-time job already,” Sellers said. “Plus, I really wanted to watch my family grow up.”

Jerry Larson/Waco Tribune-Herald

Family is important to Sellers. He said that Shelli, his wife of 27 years, has supported his woodworking “addiction,” and he tried to not let the business get in the way of attending his kids’ sporting events and school functions.

His youngest just graduated from Robinson High School, and Sellers thinks that as an upcoming empty-nester he may end up with a little more time to devote to his batmaking business.

But he’s not quite ready to take his hacks at Louisville Slugger or anything.

“This isn’t my job. I’ve got a great job,” Sellers said. “If it gets to be too much, it loses the romance.”

For more information on Sellers Bat Company, go to www.sellersbatco.com.

bcherry@wacotrib.com

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