09-05-2025
Look: Elly De La Cruz to get these pink torpedo bats for Mother's Day
When major league batters step up to the plate, they're usually accompanied by a black or brown bat.
Except on Mother's Day.
Every year, the MLB honors Mother's Day by partnering with organizations that raise awareness to help reduce breast cancer rates. Players support the cause by sporting pink gloves, cleats and, of course, a pink bat.
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On Monday, bat manufacturer Louisville Slugger posted a sneak peek of the pink torpedo bat Cincinnati Reds' star Elly De La Cruz is set to use against the Houston Astros on Mother's Day, which falls on Sunday, May 11.
"It's pink bat season, and we're gearing Elly De La Cruz up for Sunday," Louisville Slugger captioned its Facebook post.
Louisville Slugger handcrafted De La Cruz's first-ever torpedo bat, which he used for the first time March 31 against the Texas Rangers. The Reds' shortstop went 4-for-5 with two home runs that day.
De La Cruz's representatives at Boras Corporation made an urgent call to Bob Hillerich, an executive for Hillerich & Bradsby, the company that makes Louisville Slugger's bats, saying, "We need to see you now," following Opening Day weekend. The New York Yankees created headlines that first week when they crushed the Milwaukee Brewers in a three-day barrage of home runs with torpedo bats.
What is a torpedo bat?
According to the MLB, torpedo bats are defined by an untraditional barrel, which rests closer to the hitter's hands. The bats are designed to be skinnier at the top end, with noticeably more wood in the area around the label (where the hitter is most likely to hit the ball) to create a custom sweet spot.
Whitney Pfister, left, operations director, and Kelly Coleman, pro bat lead operator, stack torpedo bats after they came out of a baseball bat lathe at the Louisville Slugger Museum & Factory in Louisville.
The reconfiguration gives the bat the shape of a torpedo or, as some have pointed out, a bowling pin.
Who makes torpedo bats?
According to ESPN, the Yankees requested sample models of the torpedo-style bat from some of the league's 41 approved manufacturers. The model numbers for the spec bats started with "BP" for "bowling pin," a more accurate description of the bat's shape.
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"Torpedo sounds kind of cooler," Aaron Leanhardt, a former Yankees front office staffer who is now the Miami Marlins' field coordinator and has received much of the recent credit for the implementation of torpedo bats, told ESPN.
Hillerich & Bradsby worked with four pro baseball teams for about 18 months to design the torpedo barrel, the Courier Journal reported.
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Elly De La Cruz to get pink torpedo bats for Mother's Day. See here
