Once again we boarded the bus…
Soon we found ourselves in Louisville.
Our first stop is at the Louisville Slugger factory. But first, we once again attempted a group photo…
And a selfie..
And the final shot:
The giant bat does dominate the skyline in this historic section on downtown Louisville…
Inside we reviewed the current major league standings; how ’bout them Dodgers!
The Louisville Slugger is made by Hillerich & and Bradsby & Co. They used to make butter churns, but they found that making bats is a more profitable business…
They have many bats that have been used in MLB games; Lynda tried out the bats of current Dodgers Cory Bellinger and Justin Turner… She also took a photo with Jackie Robinson…
We watched a master bat maker working at his lathe making a bat. It takes him about 30 minutes to make a bat, using the model bat as a template and hand-measuring every aspect of the new bat with a set of calipers to make sure it is an exact replica…
(By the way, it takes 30 seconds for the CNC controlled lathes in the factory to make a bat, which is an exact replica of the specs that are programmed into the computer…)
The museum even has bats in its belfry…
We enjoyed the tour (sorry, no photos…).
They use trees from western New York and eastern Pennsylvania; their trees are in sustainable forests, and most trees selected for bat-making are about 65 years old. Bats are made mostly of maple, but also birch and ash. They maintain 3,000 different bat designs. Pros usually order 80-100 bats per player per season, to the tune of about $80 each. Retail bats, and bats made for minor league baseball are cheaper…
Next on our agenda today is a river cruise up the Ohio River; Indiana is across the river at this point.
We assembled for the lunch buffet on the lower, enclosed deck, out of the rain…
Once underway the rain slowed and we could walk around the boat and see the sights…
The water is quite high this time of the year…
It was a nice boat ride. Who doesn’t like boat rides?
Next we walked around downtown Louisville. We are in the historic downtown, adjacent to the main financial district… Lots of historical storefronts…
Here is an area where the old buildings have been torn down, but the facades have been saved. We also saw this with new, modern buildings built behind the historic facades. Very nice!
There are some Bourbon tasting rooms here, but we didn’t have time…
We spent about an hour in the Frazier Museum…
We returned on the bus, and once again turned in early…
And an enjoyable time was had by all…
And in the spirit of all things baseball, I present the McAnoy children…
Adventures in the Villa 