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Stuntman's new pitch is to hit minor-league parks
(by Barbara Christian - September 15, 2010)
Stuntman's new pitch is to hit minor-league parks
By BARBARA CHRISTIAN
Ted Batchelor's latest stunt with fire has laid the groundwork for a larger challenge.
Mr. Batchelor, who holds two Guinness World Records for fire stunts, ran the bases at a minor-league baseball game in Savannah, Ga., last month after a Sand Gnats game and before the night's fireworks display.
Now, he wants to take the show on the road -- to minor-league parks in America.
To prepare for the Aug. 14 Georgia stunt, Mr. Batchelor created his own "field of dreams" at his Bainbridge residence to serve as a practice area. The practice run around the makeshift but regular-size ball diamond went off without a hitch.
Even though the baseball-park stunt was a rousing success, Mr. Batchelor said, he wished the Grayson Stadium stunt could have been used to set another Guinness record for longest distance run while on fire.
But the Sand Gnats organization was not in a financial position to sponsor the Guinness record, he said. It costs thousands of dollars to get into the record book because of documentation, personnel and equipment for the stunt, as well as travel and expense money for a Guinness-sanctioned judge.
However, the Grayson Stadium run planted the seed for another idea Mr. Batchelor has had, and that is to repeat the stunt in every minor-league park in the country.
It fits with his larger dream of doing a fire stunt in every state in the union, he said, and he will be at the major-league baseball winter meetings in December to pitch the idea.
Mr. Batchelor said he has arranged to have a booth at the convention site and already has had some action. "The Jacksonville Suns are interested already," he said.
As far as the 50-state goal is concerned, he said he is continuing to look for sponsors for "The American Tour," and he and his crew are in touch with Air Stream Trailers. "They are hip to letting us use a camper for the tour," he said.
At Grayson Stadium, the original plan was to have stunt crew member Matt Rogers hurl a flaming baseball to Mr. Batchelor, who would catch it and then touch the cloth-wrapped, igniter-drenched ball to his clothing
That was scrubbed in favor of a local touch. Instead, a Sand Gnats fan was chosen to set fire to Mr. Batchelor using a flaming torch.
It went off perfectly, he said. Mr. Batchelor ran the bases engulfed in fire and ended the 47-second jaunt with a head-first slide into home plate.
According to writer Benjamin Hill, of major-league baseball, Sand Gnats club President John Katz said Mr. Batchelor's contribution to the evening's entertainment was even better than the buildup and the hype.
The stunt made CNN Headline News, ESPN2 Sports Nation and won the "odd-ball" recognition on MSNBC's "Countdown."
"The TV piece actually made it to Sports Center on ESPN right after a story on Tiger Woods," Mr. Batchelor said. "In fact, they mentioned my name twice and the story ended the show that day."
Mr. Batchelor, who was raised in Chagrin Falls, played baseball for Chagrin Falls High School in 1977 and had dreamed of running the bases on fire even then, he said.
While in high school, he started to dive off the natural falls in downtown Chagrin Falls. He began making a legend for himself through an annual stunt dive while on fire.
For the base-running stunt, he used a crew of six and 60 pounds of clothing and equipment, including ignition fuel and flame retardant. The retardant is buttered on his body and between layers of clothing as a barrier between flesh and flames.
Mr. Batchelor has suffered few minor burns in the three decades he has been performing stunts.
His first Guinness Record came in 2004 with a 2-minute, 38-second full-body burn without use of an oxygen supply. He topped that record before a live television audience in Rome earlier this year when he lasted 2 minutes and 57 seconds.
His broke another record again on Sept. 19, 2009, when he and the Ohio Burn Unit orchestrated the most simultaneous full-body burns as 17 people sustained a burn for 43.9 seconds.
Records are meant to be broken, Mr. Batchelor said, and he thinks about pushing the envelope all the time.
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