Louisville Slugger Museum: a hit with visitors
There's no mistaking the Louisville Slugger Museum & Factory: The world's largest baseball bat — six stories tall — leans casually near the entrance.
For more than 120 years, Hillerich & Bradsby Co. has produced the world's finest baseball bats: Louisville Sluggers. The Louisville Slugger Museum celebrates more than a century of a love affair between baseball and its most famous bat.
Visitors will find how closely Hillerich & Bradsby's history entertwines with baseball's. On display are bats used in baseball's most memorable moments, including the bat Babe Ruth used to hit his last homerun as a New York Yankee and the bat Joe DiMaggio used during his 56-game hitting streak in 1941. And you don't just see — you can hold — Louisville sluggers actually used by baseball greats Mickey Mantle, David Ortiz, Rod Carew and Jim Thorne! See also the world's oldest baseball glove and face a 90-mile-per-hour fastball! There's a special area, Small Ball, for kids up to age 8.
Teachers, click here for information on field trips, priced at $3.50 to $4 per student.
The facility remains a working factory, manufacturing 1 million baseball bats engraved with the distinctive Louisville Slugger logo every year. The factory also makes Powerbilt baseball gloves, golf clubs, golf gloves, hockey sticks, hockey gloves, Bionic Gloves and other sporting equipment. The facility shows the baseball bat-making process from forest to finish. And, in the museum, order your very own bat with your very own name on it — just like the pros!
Admission costs $10 for visitors 13–59, $9 for those 60 and older, $5 for kids aged 6–12 and free for ages 5 and younger. Group rates are available for groups of 20 or more with advance notice. For group reservations, call (877) 7–SLUGGER [(877) 775–8443], option 3, or e-mail group.sales@slugger.com.
The Louisville Slugger's history and popularity's inextricably linked with Major League Baseball. John "Bud" Hillerich, himself an amateur baseball player, began making bats in his father's woodworking shop in Louisville. In 1884, Hillerich sold a baseball bat to Pete Browning, the Louisville Eclipse batter who earned a .341 lifetime batting average — still one of the highest in Major League Baseball's history. Browning's nickname was "the Louisville Slugger." (Browning's bat is on display, of course!) Browning was so successful with his new bat that soon ballplayers from all over wanted their own.
First known as the Falls City Slugger, Hillerich's bats were later renamed the Louisville Slugger, which was trademarked in 1894. In 1916, the company became Hillerich & Bradsby Co. To this day, professional baseball players continue to order custom-made bats created in a Hillerich & Bradsby factory not far from where Browning's bat was first produced.
From Aug. 18 through June 30, Louisville Slugger Museum is open Monday-Saturday 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday noon to 5 p.m. From July 1 through Aug. 16, it closes one hour later. Check Hillerich & Bradsby's Schedule for days when there's no bat production.
- by Ivonne Rovira, Louisville Reporter for HelloMetro
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Ivonne RoviraA graduate of the prestigious Columbia University School of Journalism in New York City, Ivonne Rovira worked as a reporter for the Miami News, The Miami Herald and The Associated Press. She has written articles for The National Catholic Reporter and The Courier-Journal. For more than 15 years, Ivonne wrote and edited articles aimed at middle-school children.
