Made in Tampa Bay: Baseball bats become Dugout Mugs

WINTER HAVEN, Fla. - A Polk County company is putting new use to old baseball bats and they're unlike almost anything you've ever seen. Dugout Mugs, in Winter Haven, hollows out the barrels of baseball bats to make drinking mugs.

The bats come from a distributor in the Northeast. The folks at Dugout sand, seal, and engrave each one.

Dugout Mugs has licensing agreements with Major League Baseball, so in addition to ordering personalized mugs, customers can order their favorite professional team.

Dugout Mugs based in Winter Haven makes drinkware out of hollowed baseball bats

“The sky is the limit. There is no limitation on what we can do with them,” says co-owner Kris Dehnert.

Co-owner and company founder Randall Thompson started Dugout Mugs with one laser engraving machine in his living room.

Dugout Mugs are made from hollowed baseball bats

Now they have 10 laser engravers running all day.

Engraving one bat takes about 10 minutes. They sell between 80,000 and 100,000 mugs a year.

Dugout Mugs are engraved using laser machines

“Three years in a row we’ve seen triple-digit growth, as far as revenue,” continued Thompson.

He says the mug design really resonates with customers.

“They love baseball, they love beer. It brings the two together and I just think it speaks to a lot of people in that way,” Thompson said.

MLB team logos laser engraved on Dugout Mugs, made from hollow baseball bats

LINK: Visit https://dugoutmugs.com/ to learn more.