Demand for viral ‘torpedo’ baseball bats has sent a Pennsylvania factory into overdrive

KING OF PRUSSIA, Pa. (news agencies) — A 70-year-old man who plays in an area senior hardball league popped into Victus Sports this week because he needed bats for the new season. Plus he just had to take some cuts with baseball’s latest fad and see for himself if there really was some wizardry in the wallop off a torpedo bat.

Ed Costantini, of Newtown Square, picked up the custom-designed VOLPE11-TPD Pro Reserve Maple, and took his hacks just like MLB stars and Victus customers Anthony Volpe or Bryson Stott would inside the company’s batting cage and tracked the ball’s path on the virtual Citizens Bank Park on the computer screens.

Most big leaguers use that often indistinguishable “feel” as a qualifier as to how they select a bat.

Costantini had a similar process and thought the hype surrounding the torpedo since it exploded into the baseball consciousness over the weekend was a “hoax.” But after dozens of swings in the cage, where he said the balance was better, the ball sounded more crisp off the bat, the left-handed hitter ordered on the spot four custom-crafted torpedo bats at $150 a pop.

“The litmus test that I used was, I could see where the marks of the ball were,” Costantini said. “The swings were hitting the thickness of the torpedo as opposed to the end of the bat.”

More than just All-Stars want a crack at the torpedo — a striking design in which wood is moved lower down the barrel after the label and shapes the end a little like a bowling pin — and Costantini’s purchase highlighted the surge of interest in baseball’s shiny new toy outside the majors.

Think of home runs in baseball, and the fan’s mind races to the mammoth distances a ball can fly when slugged right on the nose, or a history-making chase that captivates a nation.