Bernard Hock

Hock charged a flat $3.50 (equivalent to $35 in 2021) for each paddle and offered over 200 different variations in design and fabrication, ranging in weight between 3 3/4 oz. to 5 1/2 oz.

Hock coached the Southern Indiana Table Tennis Association at the Bernard Hock Table Tennis Center in New Albany until his death in 1999.

Hock died of pneumonia September 18, 1999, in Clarksville, Indiana. His body was buried in St. Mary's (Catholic) Cemetery in New Albany, Indiana.

• The Marty Resiman style Reisman used a Hock Number 74 3-ply for control and later switched to a faster 5-ply Hock paddle. "The Hock," says Marty, "was the bat in use at Lawrence’s famous New York City Club". At the age of 67, Reisman won the 1997 US National Singles Hardbat Championship playing with his "beloved classic Hock paddle".

During the early 1980s, the factory that had hand-made the plywood to Hock's specifications had closed, but Hock still accepted and filled custom paddle orders. He had ordered enough special plywood in the 1950s to produce 75 times the number he had made.

In 1977, a Sports Illustrated magazine featured Reisman's Hock paddle. The article said "By contrast, Reisman's Hock Special, covered only by a thin slice of pimpled rubber, looks like a bread-line handout. Yet in the eyes of the maestro, it is the "Stradivarius of bats," a five-ply master-work that is handmade by an Indiana artisan named Bernard Hock. Though at a distinct disadvantage, Reisman has steadfastly refused to switch to sponge because, he says, "I feel I'd be prostituting a talent that I devoted a lifetime to learning. The sponge offends my dignity." Reisman continued, saying "To play with the hard rubber racket is to be in communion with the ball, unlike the sponge, it lets you experience each stroke, each vibration, until the tone and feel of the racket become part of your neurological system. And it makes such a lovely sound—plickety-plock, plickety-plock. In the old days you went looking for tournaments with your ears. All you had to do was stop for a moment and listen—plickety-plock, plickety-plock."

Hock created paddles with extreme precision. In 1956 Hock said he used "a balance scale he made himself" and pre-weighed "every single racket", including the "rubber facings, plywood forms, mahogany handles, leather grips, everything." Hock also claimed he used "a special secret in the glue mixture".

As his reputation grew, Hock sold hundreds of paddles monthly, later thousands annually. It is estimated Hock sold 75,000 paddles in his lifetime. By 1953, Hock paddles were highly regarded throughout the world. During one US championship, 10 of 12 winners used Hock paddles.

• 1950 National Seniors Doubles Champion (with Jack Carrington) • 1954 National Seniors Doubles Champion (with Eugene Bricker) • 6 times Indiana Table Tennis Senior Champion

In 1949, Hock sought special plywood in order to create better rackets. Living in New Albany, Indiana, Hock had easy access to that city's many veneer plywood factories in business at that time. While the cost of the plywood he specified was relatively high, it made a better bat with "less than 1% loss to warpage". Hock insisted the plywood factory follow his specifications exactly, "redrying the 3 veneers, face, back, and center core, to a specific moisture, a special glue," and then heating it all together "under certain pressure and heat". Hock also specified "that the face and back veneers be from the same tree or log and from consecutive slices off the log".

In the late 1940s, Dick Miles and Marty Reisman were world class players who played using Hock rackets. Miles won four consecutive U.S. titles within a total of 10 national championships between 1945 and 1962, more than any other US player. At the age of 34, Miles, playing with a Hock racket (Style No. 74), reached the semifinals in the singles event of the 1959 World Championships, losing to the eventual world champion Rong Guo-Tuan. No one playing with a hard rubber racket has since gone farther in a World Championship. Reisman was the 1958 and 1960 U.S. Men's singles champion and the 1997 U.S. hardbat champion.

Hock began crafting table tennis paddles in 1933 for his personal use. Hock made his first paddle using wood from a discarded packing crate and a bicycle inner tube for the rubber. Jerry Hock, the youngest of the five Hock brothers, and a long-time table tennis player, said "in the beginning the boys made their own table, and Bernie was very early into making rackets. He stretched inner-tube rubber over the wood (paddles) to produce a surprisingly good playable racket." Hock quickly started experimenting with better materials. Friends and opponents ordered Hock's new designs, and Hock was soon receiving orders from players around the world.

Bernard Francis Hock (August 12, 1912 – August 18, 1999) was a table tennis "bat maker", considered a world-class pioneer in the design and fabrication of table tennis rackets (known as "bats" in Britain, and "paddles" in the U.S. and Canada). Many of the great American players of the classic "Table Tennis Era" exclusively used Hock rackets. Hock is remembered as a true craftsman. In 1977, Sports Illustrated described Hock as the "Stradivarius of bats".

Bernard Hock was born August 12, 1912, in Wills Township, LaPorte County, Indiana, the fifth of Mary Agnes (née Nawroski) and Frank William Hock's seven children. Hock was a graduate of New Albany High School and a long-time resident at 808 Cedar Bough Place in New Albany's Cedar Bough Place Historic District, one of the earliest private streets in the United States.