Baseball and Bats

It’s October 18, 2016 and the Dodgers are playing the Cubs today at Dodger Stadium. Cue the eerie Twilight Zone music, notice the room start to spin, and hear Rod Serling’s voice. “It’s 1965 in Southern California. You have just witnessed, in person at Dodger Stadium, Sandy Koufax break the single season strike-out record. You and about 40,000 other fans have been cheering wildly for about 20 minutes. Koufax is appreciative. He is arguably the greatest left handed pitcher, if not greatest pitcher, in the history of Baseball. His first pitch to the next batter is in the dirt. Funny. Even the greatest miss the mark. You are about to enter the STRIKE ZONE!” Which brings me to Baseball…Bats. And Wing Dings.

And… the hit and miss of the toy business. It’s 1985 and I was a toy designer with Hasbro in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. My job was essentially to come up with new ideas for plush toys. It was fun and challenging. Toys have to be created and developed a good year or two ahead of the Christmas season in which they are sold. What to do, what to do? Plush toys are mainly for girls. How about some for boys? I like bats. Flying mice. Cute flying mice. That’s a boy thing. And of course, we need a lot of them. More to purchase. How about a TEAM of bats. BASEBALL BATS! That’s it!! A team of baseball bats! And, of course, “Right-side up is up-side down!” Clever, Mike, very clever. Make some sketches. Build some models.

My co-workers were impressed. Show them in a big meeting to the brass upstairs. Impressive. Very impressive. The president says “I like it! Proceed. Develop this line of what will inevitably become the next hit toy. But…you have to make it for girls too.”

(Strike one.) I do like girls. I am married to one. But a team of baseball bats in 1985 does not have girls. Oh, well, compromise must be made if my ‘child’ is to be produced and live on the shelves of Toys R Us. “And, since it is girls too, we can’t call them ‘Baseball Bats.’ Sounds too…male.”

(Strike two.) Enter ‘Ding Bats.’ “No, too silly. Sounds like they are crazy.” Ding…ding…bats have wings. A co-worker says “Wing Dings!” Six months and six colorful bat-like characters later…3 boys and 3 girls, with only one being a baseball-type. The back story is that they hang upside down in your closet. The closet is dark, so they also glow in the dark. Glow-in-the-dark is always a winner. Of course that requires a cute little hanger so your Wing Dings can ‘hang around.’ And, because they fly…on the wind… all the names are quite ‘airy.’ Wisp, Windy, Zephyr, Cool Breeze, Glider, Flighty……Sneezy, Grumpy, and Dopey. Looking good!

Time for testing. The kids love it! Time for a television commercial. I can hear Vin Scully now… "Koufax gets the sign. Here’s the wind up…and the pitch…” Wing Dings do hit the shelves of Toys R Us, K-Mart, and other stores in the Fall of 1986. Some folks purchased them. Many did not. Sales were flat. The Wing Dings didn’t fly. Cue Vin Scully to finish… “Strike Three Called!” Of course, you have to know Vin Scully to get the full effect. And, he would have loved the Baseball Bats just the way they were, before they were 'Dinged' up. It’s October 2016 and you can still find Wing Dings for sale on Ebay. They didn’t fly, but they are still hanging around.