A growing baseball bat, glove and gear maker just closed on a downtown Fort Mill spot

A growing national baseball and softball products company is set to make downtown Fort Mill its home base.

Stinger Sports founder and CEO Brandon Eaton closed Friday on the 16,000-square-foot building at 108 Spratt St., the former rug showroom beside Millstone Park. Eaton started his company in fall 2015 in New York, and officially based it in Rock Hill in early 2021. Eaton moved to the area almost four years ago and ran Stinger remotely for much of that time.

Stinger currently has space at the end of Burkette Road in Rock Hill. The site doubles as a training facility for Fort Mill-based travel ball organization Legacy Baseball. A move to the new larger space in Fort Mill still will include a partnership with Legacy.

“We are going to transfer our Stinger company headquarters to that facility,” Eaton said. “So we’ll have all our order fulfillment going out of there, our warehouse, our offices, all of that. We also have plans to have a full retail section out front.”

Four batting cages in the new site will allow Legacy, which recently added softball, to continue training.

“It’s going to be a Legacy exclusive training facility for them to do all their practices in the off-season, their training and all that,” Eaton said.

Legacy Baseball

Legacy co-founders Jeremy Keller and Doug Barrett had five baseball teams when the group first partnered with Stinger in 2019. This fall Legacy likely will have 12 baseball and five softball teams, with about 200 players. Close to 90% of players are from the Fort Mill, Tega Cay or Indian Land areas.

“Having a training facility in the heart of Fort Mill to call ‘home’ is an important step and a big ‘win’ for our current Legacy families as well as attracting future families to our organization,” said Keller, a former all-conference and conference player of the year baseball player at Winthrop University, now director of baseball with Legacy.

With more than 150 families throughout York County, along with Lancaster and Chester counties, it’s common to see Legacy players on middle and high school teams throughout the region.

“It’s always a great night of high school baseball when Legacy teammates are competing with class in opposing dugouts, praying together and loving each other as family through the success and adversity softball and baseball provides,” said Barrett, general manager with Legacy.

Keller and Barrett have coached at the middle and high school levels in the Fort Mill School District, in addition to leading Legacy teams.

“Jeremy and I have always dreamed of having Legacy’s home in Fort Mill to support and serve the core of our families from Catawba Ridge, Nation Ford, Fort Mill and Indian Land communities, developing dugout relationships that will grow together on and off the field,” Barrett said.

Both say they found in Stinger a like-minded partner, a company that provides a high-quality baseball experience without the soaring price tags.

“We were relatively small and both had aspirations to do big things – Stinger on a national level, and Legacy at a more community level,” Keller said of the initial partnership. “It’s been rewarding to see us both grow together simultaneously. We’ve celebrated their success, and they likewise have taken a lot of pride in watching us grow our brand as well.”

Pro wood bats to the Nuke

Tentatively called Baseball Planet, the retail component for Stinger in Fort Mill will have a lineup that shows the company’s history.

Stinger began with professional grade wooden bats. Next came durable battling gloves, after Eaton found costs rising faster than quality among other baseball gear at the time. Stinger has fielding and batting gloves, baseball bags and other equipment.

For many, the Stinger name exploded with the ‘Nuke.’ Online bat reviews for the Nuke series bats aimed at middle and high school baseball were strong, and sales followed. Now Stinger has Nuke and Missile series bats.

“Definitely the bat reviews have helped,” Eaton said. “I think the main thing we can credit our success and our growth to is holding true to our original premise as a company, and that is to create and provide really high quality products for affordable prices.”

The new space will have meeting rooms, office space and more space to potentially hire additional staff. Yet it’s the place where anyone, from a coach looking to outfit an entire team to a parent or player in need of batting gloves, can stop in and try products.

“Mainly that retail aspect, that walk-in storefront aspect,” Eaton said. “We don’t have that at all here in Rock Hill. So it just gives our customers an opportunity to actually come in and touch and feel our products, and shop.”

Company, office and warehouse space will come first. Then the cages and retail parts will be added.

Eaton would like to have it all up and running sometime this fall.

“Obviously Fort Mill was our first choice because of our relationship with Legacy,” Eaton said. “There really is nothing like it there.”