Bill Zuber is probably most known for his success in baseball and with Zuber’s Restaurant. We are fortunate that people often give us items that are connected to one of these two ‘successes’ in Bill’s life.
Zuber’s restaurant had a baseball theme to it which was apparent from the moment you looked at a menu. Another item that connected both the baseball career and the restaurant was a baseball pen that advertised the restaurant contact information. Possibly he was a leader in this method of advertising a business! We have had two different kinds of these pens given to us by people who had fond memories of coming to Zuber’s Restaurant. The larger pen is made of wood, the small one is plastic.
One day I was talking with our local cooper, Tom Oehler, and I showed him the larger pen. We visited about how it might be possible to replicate this baseball pen and sell them at Zuber’s. So Tom went home and played around with making a small bat. He came up with a model and drilled a hole so we could insert an ink pen. We pulled apart a Bic pen and that fit into the bat. Next we had to figure out how to put our information on the pen. In one of Tom’s wood working classes he came upon a specific kind of paper I could use to print our information on and then adhere it to the wooden bat. After trial and error, I was able to do this fairly successfully. Tom cut a number of bats and I got to work! Below is a series of pictures showing the original bat pens we were given followed by the steps to make the baseball pen. We now have a pen that will honor the memory of Bill Zuber and his career as well as it will be a fun and unique pen to own! We’ll be selling these pens beginning this summer, at Zuber’s Homestead Hotel. If you look closely at the “old” and new pens, the phone number has not changed in all these years! Thanks to Tom for your help!