It was around this time last year that foreign substances, the stuff pitchers use to make baseballs spin enough to achieve celestial orbit, took center stage in Major League Baseball.

Quietly, the issue seems to have achieved equilibrium. Umpires still inspect pitchers for foreign substances when they leave the mound (or when they enter the game, in the case of ninth-inning relievers). The inspections more closely resemble a handshake than a shakedown. They almost always pass quickly.

The handshakes might just be achieving their desired effect. Four-seam fastball spin rate dropped league-wide once the initial “enhanced inspection” measures went in place last year, bounced back a bit, and have held steady into 2022. Statcast tracks the average revolutions per minute of every pitch on a league-wide basis. Four-seamers peaked at 2,306 rpm in 2020, then fell to 2,274 in 2021. This year, they are down to 2,259 rpm.

It’s possible the documented changes to the baseball have something to do with falling spin rates. At least the change has been consistent within the 2022 season. In April, the average four-seam spin rate was 2,256 rpm. In May, it was 2,261.

Now there is another sticky substance story to be told. It begins not in a major league clubhouse, but in the garage of Landon Stewart, a freshman infielder at Santa Margarita High.

Two years ago, when the COVID-19 pandemic halted the pace of life across the globe, Stewart got to work on his idea. The marketplace for sticky bat grips used by hitters in high school, college and the pros appeared to him to be relatively static. At the encouragement of Brian Stewart, his entrepreneur father, Landon dug deeper.

“He puts these things on a desk in front of me,” Brian said. “He goes, ‘this is the market leader, it’s total garbage. Here’s why.’ Another one, he said ‘it does this but not this. … Everybody who plays baseball would like a product like that.’ That’s what really started the process.”

Flash forward to May. The first batches of Kraken Bat Grip began shipping from the Stewarts’ garage to eager customers – some high schoolers, some college players, even a few minor leaguers.

The irony of this story lies in its purity: father and son tinkering in their garage, working out the kinks of an invention, then trying it out on the laboratory of a baseball field. It has all the hallmarks of a classic American success story, minus the stigma of umpire inspections. For Landon Stewart, a middle infielder, the project became fun before it became (hopefully) profitable.

The same powerful grip enhancers that are illegal on a pitcher’s mound have been used legally by hitters for decades. Liquid pine tar – the stuff that famously got George Brett in trouble during a 1983 game at Yankee Stadium – fell out of favor in the 1980s. In its place came a wave of waxy, solid substances contained in a cylinder about the size of an empty toilet paper roll. One of the originals, Mota Stick, was named for the Dodgers’ Manny Mota. The product’s namesake told me he had no direct involvement in its development.

Two other wax sticks, Tiger and Pelican, eventually emerged as the market leaders. These brands became convenient targets when pitchers began applying them to baseballs on the mound. For years, they had been diligently serving hitters by keeping baseball bats affixed to batting gloves. Look closely at the batting circles on a major league field, and you might spot a wax stick laying low.

For Kraken to penetrate the wax stick market, Landon Stewart needed something new.

“I just really wanted something I could take out in the heat in Arizona,” he said. “Ask players right now, their biggest complaint right now is it goops up in the heat. We wanted to use the same product when it’s cool out as well. The product I invented, Kraken, can be used in both temperatures well. It’s sticky but not too sticky. You can run to first base and the bat won’t be sticking to your hand.”

Neither Landon nor his father possessed the necessary background knowledge about the chemical composition of bat wax, how to mix ingredients, or how to hand-pour them into tiny cylinders.

At first, they experimented with different ingredients on a trial-and-error basis. They spoke to some surf wax manufacturers based nearby in Orange County, trading notes. They researched and identified a chemical consulting company to help nail down the final mixture. Landon said he tested “hundreds” of different formulations before settling on a winner.

Landon was 14 when the process began. He’s 16 now. He has still not taken a class in chemistry.

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“I have strong confidence in our product right now,” he said. “We have great reviews on it.”

Paxton Wallace and Carson Matthews, who play for the Class-A Inland Empire 66ers, are among Kraken’s first pro clients. So is Aldrich De Jongh, a Dodgers prospect currently playing at advanced Class-A Great Lakes. Landon said social media marketing has helped spread the word. Teenagers and Instagram are perhaps the most powerful epoxy on the planet, after all.

Landon said he’s used word-of-mouth marketing to spread the Kraken gospel among local high school players. Before long, some rival high school pitchers reached out to him independently.

“Which is funny with what’s going on in MLB right now,” he said. “I always laugh it off: You can use it for whatever you want, but it wasn’t made for pitching.”