We’ll it’s no big surprise we are on the road again. This time we are on a mini fall trip. The girls have been asking to do more museums. How did we decide on Louisville you might be asking yourself, well I’ll tell you! We pulled up our current memberships ( Columbus Zoo, The Wilds, Rock & Roll Rall of Fame, and COSI) and looked for which town that was within a few hours drive that had overlapping reciprocity. Louisville won this time.
Do you have suggestions on where we should go next time? We are thinking Pittsburgh but haven’t made any plans yet, we are thinking maybe in the spring. We’ve already done: Washington DC, St.Louis (2x), Chicago (but we’d consider going back so much we didn’t get to see), Indianapolis, Toledo, Cleveland.
Ok ok, enough rambling let’s get to the meat and potatoes of day 1 of our trip.
Since today was a travel day we decided to do the Louisville Slugger Museum & Factory because I had read on their website that it only takes 60-90 minutes for the full museum and tour experience. We bought our tickets online ahead of time and got there just before our tour group was starting so we didn’t get to explore the museum before the tour, but don’t worry we had plenty of time afterwards.
First stop, we watched a short video about how Hillerich & Bradsby Co manages their forests and selects the “just right” trees for making baseball bats.
Next stop we learned about billets and why some players choose one type of wood over the other. We got to see where some players have even come into the factory to pick out their own billets. we learned that different colors on the end mean they are different types of wood.
On to stop #3 the Lathe used to make Pro MLB bats, no pictures or videos of the large in progress after all we don’t want to ruin it for everyone but it is very neat! Here are some of the pro ball players that have come in and actually watched their bats being made. There’s a new one that you can just barely see on the left side of the picture- it was just done Saturday. Any guess who’s signature it might be?
If you guessed Derek Jeter you’d be right!
Next stop , Custom Shop.
The last few stops are making the non MLB bats and then the finishing processes. Not any pics of those process but check out this taco bat!
At the end of the tour everyone gets a mini bat! No extra cost just included with your admission and if you are wondering about admission no it’s not reciprocal with any of our other museums but we felt it was worth the cost.
On to the museum!
Hold a piece of history they said! So we did.
The total weight of the bat is approximately 68,000 pounds. The hollow interior has a 30,000 gallon capacity. The bat is constructed of ASTM A36 carbon steel. The bat is 120 ft. long and 9 ft. diameter at the base; 3 ft. 6 in. diameter at the handle with a 6 ft. 6 in. diameter knob.
Stay tuned to see what shenanigans we get into tomorrow at the Kentucky Science Center and the Frazier Kentucky History Museum both are on our reciprocity list and if time permits we might just check out Lights under Louisville .