Anyone who knows me knows a few things that are core loves of my world… and one of those is baseball! My whole life I have been surrounded by baseball from my family and to say we are BIG fans would be an understatement.
Surprisingly, in all my visits to Kentucky, I had never been to the Louisville Slugger Museum… as a big baseball fan, that’s unacceptable! So on this latest trip I was making to Louisville, though it was for work, I made sure to carve out a few hours during the time the Museum was open to visit. (That was the trouble, any other time I had been in town, I only had free time after the museum had closed!)
You know me, I love a good theme, so of course I had to bring along a Cubs jersey to wear as my attire for the outing.
Walking up to the building you can see it from a ways away… there’s a huge bat out front! So fun! And what a perfect welcome!
I was signed up for a tour and I was there just in time for that so my wandering of the museum had to wait until after the tour finished. It’s not a given that they will be making bats every day but I was hopeful that they would be and I was in luck – they were! But honestly, even if they hadn’t been getting to see behind the scenes of something so iconic would be amazing in and of itself! The tour starts with a video about the history (this goes back way further than most people, myself included, realize) and the sustainability efforts. Did you know that only very special trees are picked to become Louisville Slugger bats and the company plants more trees than they cut down? Gotta love that!
Being such a Cubs fan I took extra joy in seeing things that were Cubs centric of course! Seeing the blanks for Ian Happ’s bats was made even more cool when I got to hold it!
The bat process has a wide variety of steps and technologies. Seeing the machines that mills the bats was super cool and to also see all the signatures of all the players who have visited the factory was awesome! I love to know that I am not the only one who likes to see how things are made!
Walking through the factory you have a sense that while some things have changed over time, many haven’t… there is a lot of tradition and pride… I think that’s a large part of what makes their bats such great ones!
I am not going to walk you through the whole tour because frankly, you need to go to it for yourself! I will tell you that I already want to go back and see it all again so I can soak in even more details than I did on the first go!
Back in the museum portion of the building they have highlights of various players. I was there in Veteran’s Day so spending some time at the Ted Williams area felt very apropos.
There was even someone hand turning a bat! WOW! Talk about some amazing craftsmanship!
One of my favorite things was that they had actual used bats from some of the greats and you could hold one! When I saw that Andre Dawson was an option, I literally squealed with delight! I took full advantage of this opportunity!
I had a lovely chat with the gentleman who was handling these precious bats and learned that they rotate out which ones they have out. I felt so lucky that one of my all-time favorite Cubs players was available this day. And they do have bats from all the teams so if you go, I hope you are able to see one that is as meaningful to you as this one was to me!
(Note – I got so excited about this that when I was taking the picture I didn’t realize I was standing on the plate. Oops! I am a stickler for details you know!)
They have actual batting cages that you can swing a Louisville Slugger and see how you do. Not the ones from the players of course but they do tell you who would be swinging the same model you select and in looking at that info I selected the bat Kyle Schwarber hits with because even though he is no longer with Chicago I will always think of him in a Cubs uniform! It had been a long time since I’d swung a bat but I was game! No pictures of this and I wasn’t hitting homeruns or anything but I will say my batting average would have been a decent one 😉
And you can visit The Bat Vault where they have many of the original bat models that were create for some true legends of the game. It’s like being amongst the giants of baseball.
What an amazing experience I had. For anyone who loves baseball or who loves to see how something is made… you MUST visit the Louisville Slugger Museum. I honestly can’t wait to visit again and to take my fello0w baseball loving peeps!
Play Ball!