How do you re-tape a baseball bat?

Answer 1

My (and now my son's) favorite tape-job is done like this:

Start by wrapping several times just above the knob to your desired thickness (provides a good padded base).
Once that's done, spool out a couple of feet of tape and spin it while letting it hang freely from the bat handle. Keep spinning it until it's wound tightly like a small rope.
Spiral wrap the "rope" as high as you'd like then come back down with full unfolded tape to cover the "rope", overlapping each wrap, until you're back at the bottom where you wrap a couple of times then cut the tape.

You could use any number of rope-like objects under the wrap to provide a different feel on the grip, but the tape-alone method can be done in the dugout if necessary.

Also, you might want to use a shoelace or something to temporarily wrap up the handle (as the rope-like object) just to get a feel for which way you prefer it wound (with or against the fingers).

After the tape job is complete, you can always give a quick once-over with "real" (commercial) padded bat tape to make it pretty, but just covering the tape in pine-tar works fine, too.