Whenever he receives a new box of bats, Carlos Beltran takes each bat out, holds it to his ear and raps it, gently but convincingly, with the base of his hand, his head cocked, one eye shut, concentrating like a virtuoso tuning his violin….

“The higher the pitch, the better,” he said, referring to the tone. “Better means stronger and harder, more compressed.”

– David Waldstein, N.Y. Times.