The first product that we chose for our ‘Made in America’ section had to be truly American. A company or product that reminded you of the good old U.S.A. when you heard the name. It only made sense to feature something from the game that is as American as apple pie… baseball and the Louisville Slugger.
In 1884 at the age of 18, “Bud” Hillerich created a wooden baseball bat on a lathe for Pete Browning. “The Louisville Slugger”, one of the nicknames that Pete was known by, played for the Louisville Eclipse baseball team of the American Association. The bat the Bud turned for Pete Browning is believed to be the first bat made by the future company Hillerich & Bradsby Company.
For the past 125 years, Hillerich & Bradsby Company (H&B), under the name “Louisville Slugger” has sold over 100,000,000 bats, and currently their bats are used by 60% of the players in Major League Baseball. Although H&B also has been producing aluminum bats since the 1970s and in recent years has gotten into composite bats, wooden bats are still being turned out in excess of 1,000 per day at their factory in Louisville, Kentucky. The type of wood preferred for bats has changed from hickory and oak to ash and maple based on tensile strength, hardness and weight.
Today’s bats are lighter. They have larger barrels and thinner handles. Both Babe Ruth and Hank Aaron used similar shaped model bats, however, Ruth was known to order bats that weighed as much as 42 ounces. The R43 model bats Ruth used to hit his record 60 homeruns in a 154 game season in 1927 were 35-1/2 inches long and weighed 38-1/2 ounces and were made from hickory. Many of Hank Aaron’s bats weighed 33 ounces and were made from ash.
The major advance in technology has been in production. It used to be that it would take 15 minutes to produce a bat, but now with computer guided lathes it takes only seconds. You can actually see the production of the wooden bats if you visit the Louisville Slugger Museum & Factory during the hours that the factory is operating. Not only can you buy a wooden Louisville Slugger that is made in America, you can actually watch it being made.
The Louisville Slugger Official Website
The Louisville Slugger Museum