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January 19, 2021
Latest Blog: THE LOUISVILLE SLUGGER
No, the Louisville slugger wasn’t one of baseball’s big home run hitters hailing from Louisville. We’re talking about a bat, the most famous line of bats in baseball history. But, ironically, the bats did evolve thanks to a ballplayer from Louisville. His name was Pete Browning and he had a 13-year career that stretched from 1882 to 1894, the first eight years of which were spent with the Louisville Eclipse of the then major league American Association.
Enter John “Bud” Hillerich, who at the time was an apprentice in his father’s woodworking shop in Louisville. One day in 1884, the 17-year-old Bud went to an Eclipse game and watched as Pete Browning broke his bat. Browning was also in a bad slump and, after the game, Bud Hillerich invited him over to his father’s shop, offering to craft him a new bat. He wasn’t exactly a novice. Bud had played some amateur ball and actually made some of his teammates their bats. So with Browning watching his every move, the youngster crafted him a new bat from a solid piece of wood. The next day Browning took his new bat to the plate and banged out three hits. Goodbye slump.
When his teammates asked Browning where he got the bat he told them the story and soon several of them were walking into the Hillerich shop to ask about having new bats made. Bud’s father saw his company’s future in items such as porch columns and stair railings, as well as butter churns, so he began telling the ballplayers to go somewhere else. But his son kept after him, trying to convince his father there was a big future in bat making and the elder Hillerich finally gave Bud the green light.
In 1894, after his father’s retirement, Bud Hillerich took over the business and soon after registered the name “Louisville Slugger” with the United States Patent Office. Then in 1905, Hillerich thought of a clever way to market his product. He paid the great Honus Wagner to allow him to put his name on a bat, which started a practice that continues to today. It was one of the very first times an athlete had endorsed an athletic product. By 1923, Louisville Slugger was producing and selling more bats than any other company in the country. To further the marketing end of his company, Bud Hillerich hired a man named Frank Bradsby and in 1916 made him a full partner, changing the name of the company of the Hillerich and Bradsby Company.
Over the years, Louisville Slugger bats were used by the likes of Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Ted Williams, Joe DiMaggio, Jackie Robinson, Roberto Clemente, Johnny Bench, Hank Aaron, Tony Gwynn, George Brett, Derek Jeter and Ken Griffey, Jr. That’s quite a laundry list of superstars, and there were many, many more.
By the 1970s the company also began making aluminum bats and to date has fashioned more than 100 million bats. In 1997, they signed an agreement to make the Louisville Slugger the official bat of Major League baseball. There have been other bats coming onto the market in recent years but the Louisville Slugger remains a giant in the industry.
To keep the company growing, in recent years it has been creating fielding and batting gloves, helmets, equipment bats, catching gear and other baseball accessories. They also offer the general public personalized, miniature, commemorative and collectible bats. Today, more than 1,800,000 wood bats are shipped from the Hillerich and Bradsby factory each year. And it all started when a 17-year old decided to go to a ballgame and saw a star player break his bat.
As for Pete Browning, he had quite a career in the nineteenth century. He retired after the 1894 season with a .341 lifetime batting average. He won three batting titles and, in 1887, batted .402 with 118 RBIs in 134 games. Guess he really loved that Louisville Slugger bat.
Bill Gutman
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