Is it bad to be good? For table tennis players shopping for gear, it would be easy to draw that conclusion. Options abound for bad players (e.g. the ever-popular four-pack of cheap hardbats, usually red or blue on both sides and very much disapproved of by the ITTF) and great players (the other extreme: the latest and greatest professional gear, generating more spin than cable news and rivaling saffron in terms of price per unit weight). In between, however, lies a yawning chasm of players cruelly neglected merely for the sin of being good. This is where Eric Baker comes in. Baker (pictured), a 34-year-old entrepreneur living in the Indianapolis suburb of Fishers, Indiana, is taking aim at this overlooked demographic. While earning his MBA at nearby Anderson University, Baker ran the school's table tennis club. While sports can be a healthy break from the rigors of study, Baker's keen business mind could not help but notice a pattern. The few players who had professional quality gear could easily beat the newcomers, who just played with whatever was lying about. Understandably frustrated, the newcomers would seldom return. "That’s where I noticed a need," recalls Baker. "There were a bunch of kids that would love to play, but they didn’t have anything and they definitely didn’t have $300 because they’re poor college kids." Realizing that there are more good players than great players, Baker got to work catering to this paradoxically vast niche. He invested in top-of-the-line blades and rubber, testing each against his business partner, a ping-pong robot in his garage (pictured, background). Together, they tirelessly tested new combinations of materials, aiming to create high quality gear at low(er) prices. The result is CounterStrike Table Tennis, the company Baker founded two years ago. CounterStrike paddles range from $41 to $75. The prices partially reflect the cost of gaining the ITTF stamp of approval, meaning they are tournament-legal. "There’s such a huge market for a transitional piece of equipment to take people from playing for fun with friends to being more serious about it," says Baker, the young CEO on a mission, driven by vision and ambition. So, good players, the problem is not with you, it is with the system. Luckily, Eric Baker is here to reassure you that it is, in fact, good to be good.

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