I was on a road trip last weekend.  One of the stops on our wondrous and fulfilling journey was The World’s Largest Baseball Bat. When I arrived I felt like I had been swindled by Barnum. 

The bat resides in Knoebels Amusement Resort, which is in central Pennsylvania. Knoebels is a sprawling open-air amusement park/mini golf course/pool/campground in the middle of nowhere PA. Upon our arrival we parked in an unpaved field. Undaunted by the lack of asphalt, we asked the next twenty employees about the bat — no one had heard of it. After 30 minutes of wandering we found it.
 
Based upon the website and the several meta-sites promoting the baseball bat one would assume there would be a pavilion or gazebo housing the mammoth and inspiring structure: a bat that Paul Bunion would have used, a bat giants would strain to lift, a bat of such size and girth that penis jokes would be rendered impotent.
 
Instead there was a large piece of cracked, untreated wood nailed to the side of a workshop. The bat was large, but discolored by age. Bunion wouldn’t have touched it. Giants would have used it for a toothpick. And all I could do was position myself for the obligatory phallic picture.
 
What really made the entire experience surreal was the sign about the bat that read, “World’s Largest Baseball Bat?” Why the fuck is there a question mark on that sign? Aren’t they sure one way or the other if someone has a larger bat? Obviously this attraction is larger than advertised and as a guy I can sympathize the allure of exaggeration. But if you’re going to say biggest, then just say biggest. 
 
The bat’s draw, presumably for the last decade, has been limited to fourteen twenty-somethings, all of them on the same road trip. None of us were impressed, but I’m planning on posting that picture to facebook.

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