In her periodic Worth the Drive series, arts and entertainment writer Meredith Moss takes you to places in our region that are worth your time and money.
If you have somewhere you would like to suggest, contact Meredith: MMoss@coxohio.com
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HOW TO GO:
What: Louisville Slugger Museum and Factory
Where: Corner of Eighth and Main Streets in downtown Louisville.
Hours: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday and noon to 5 p.m. on Sundays. Extended summer hours run through Sunday, Aug. 9; 9 a.m. – 6 p.m. Monday through Wednesday, 9 a.m. – 8 p.m. Thursday through Saturday, and 11 a.m. – 6 p.m. Sundays during that time.
Admission: $12 for adults, $11 for seniors age 60 and up, $7 for children ages 6-12 and free for children 5 and under. Group discounts are available for parties of 20 or more with advance reservations.
Parking: In addition to metered street parking, there is a parking garage attached to the museum that will bring you directly to the museum lobby. Meters are free on Sundays
Fore more information: The building is accessible to the physically challenged. For more information: call (502) 588-7228 or www.slugger-museum.com
VIDEO: To meet Shannon Siders, visit MyDaytonDailyNews.com
There was a time when factory tours provided an entertaining and educational outing for families and school groups.
Unfortunately, those kinds of excursions are few and far between these days, which is what makes a trip to Louisville Slugger Museum & Factory such a special treat. Americans have a passion for baseball, and this is an outing that will appeal to folks of all ages. Baseball fanatics will love this excursion, and even those who don’t know a lot about the sport are bound to find it fascinating.
You may recall that Louisville Slugger has been in the news: In March, Wilson Sporting Goods, Co., a division of Amer Sports Corporation, acquired the Louisville Slugger brand from Hillerich & Bradsby, Co., (H&B). Happily, under the terms of the agreement, H& B continues to manufacture the famous wood bats at its downtown Louisville factory and also continues to operate the historic museum, factory and gift shop. That’s good news for those of us who are within a few hours of the entertainment complex.
Many of the galleries include interactive exhibits and historic memorabilia. You can face down a 90-mile an hour fast ball, don gloves and hold bats actually used by baseball heroes, and don gloves and swing replica wood models from Babe Ruth, Derek Jeter and other superstars. The Signature Wall has a branded signature plate from each of the players who has ever signed a contract with Louisville Slugger.
Take time to view “The Heart of the Game,” a 13-minute film that focuses on the players who use the Louisville Slugger bats. They talk about what their bats mean to them and how they affect their game. A popular item in the museum gift shop is a personalized Louisville Slugger bat which is made on-the-spot for you. And you’ll be given a free mini-bat as a souvenir when you end your tour.
Paying a visit
You can’t miss this museum once you’re in the vicinity. Outside stands the world’s largest bat, 120 feet tall. A perfect photo op. To see everything and take the factory tour, you’ll probably want to allow at least two hours. The last tour is a half hour before the museum closes each day, but that won’t give you time to look at all museum exhibits or to watch the entertaining movie. An ideal time to come is in the morning when the museum opens. As you’d expect, the museum is busiest in the summer months.
Randy Warren and his family visited the museum to celebrate 10-year-old Alec’s birthday, combining it with a Reds game in Cincinnati.
“My son and I are big baseball fans, but the girls (his wife and daughter) not so much. But they came along anyway,” he said. “We got to hold bats used by Mickey Mantle, Cal Ripken Jr, David Ortiz and Johnny Bench, and we got to see a bat Babe Ruth used to hit 60 home runs with. Babe Ruth notched his home runs in his bat. We got to stand with life-like sculptures of Babe Ruth, Ted Williams, Ken Griffey Jr, and Derek Jeter.”
Alec spent some time in the batting cages taking some swings before they started the tour. “On the tour we learned that Major League players actually use about 120 bats per player per season,” said Warren.
Touring the factory
In the introduction to the tour you’ll learn that Bud Hillerich made the first bat in 1884, that the company produces 1.8 million wood bats each year in the factory and that the wood comes from forests in Pennsylvania and New York.
It’s intriguing to see a live demonstration of how the bats were all hand-turned before the early 1980s. In those days, when a player would order between six and 12 bats at a time, it took a master craftsman about 30 minutes to make just one bat. So the craftsman would spend a half day to fulfill one order.
At the Hemple Production Lathe, you’ll view a machine that can carve a bat in 30 seconds and produces 30 different models of retail bats. Next is the CNC (computerized numeric control) lathes — those on which all of the Louisville Slugger bats used by Major League players are made. The machines are incredibly precise, and the machines make thousands of different bat models.
At every stop, there are also short videos that further explain that step in the bat-making process. Visitors will see how bats are burn branded, and see the combination machine in action. This machine cuts off the nubs on the ends of the bats used to protect the bats during the production process. It also sands the bat, and can take a small scoop out of the end of the barrel of the bat, to make it a bit lighter (called cupping). Guests are welcome to take home a nub as an extra souvenir.
The last stop inside the factory shows guests how each of the bats is hand-dipped in a water based lacquer. Major League Baseball must approve all bat finishes and you’ll see the most popular seven finishes. You’ll see samples of the pink bats are allowed for use by players only on Mother’s Day.
Meet Shannon Siders
The museum’s enthusiastic marketing communications associate is Shannon Siders, a Miamisburg High School graduate who also attended Alter High School.
“I’m a huge baseball fan! ” says Siders, who as a child always loved going to Reds games with her dad. “I was a huge fan of Dayton Daily News sports writer Hal McCoy and interviewed him for a project I did on Pete Rose while I was at Alter.”
After graduating from Bellarmine University in Louisville in 2010, Siders was greatly influenced by a summer job selling sorbet at Louisville Slugger Field. “I got to meet a lot of the interns and full-time employees,” said Siders. “They told me about all of the opportunities in sports administration.” She went on to earn a masters degree in Sport Administration from the University of Louisville.
She interned in Daytona Beach for the Daytona Cubs, a Advanced- A affiliate for the Chicago Cubs. The team is now the Tortugas, the Advanced-A affiliate of the Reds. She then became the manager of communications and baseball operations for the Reno Aces, a Triple-A team for the Arizona Diamondbacks. A highlight was overseeing the media and baseball operations for the 2013 Triple-A All Star Game.
She accepted the job at Louisville Slugger Museum in 2014. “In this job I am still involved with baseball but I can go to the games as a fan and just enjoy them!” Siders said.
The museum typically attracts 300,000 visitors a year from all over the nation. “We get every age group, families, adults who are in town for conventions,” she said. “When the national FFA convention was in Louisville, for example, thousands of high school kids came for the tour.”
Siders favorite part of the attraction is the factory tour. “It’s so interesting for people to see how such a huge piece of American history is made. Just like when people say Kleenex for tissues, they say Louisville Slugger for baseball bats.”
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