Part 1: Louisville Slugger® — Great Bat and Enduring Symbol

Posted on November 4, 2011 by admin

The announcement that 30-year sporting goods industry veteran Charlie Dunbar joined Estrada Beisbol as Chief Operations Officer (COO) to help market The Hitting Jack-It™ System reminded us once again just how important brands and bats are to our business. Charlie has extensive sales and marketing experience working with many premier brands, especially Louisville Slugger®, “the Official Bat of Major League Baseball (MLB).”

More than 60 percent of MLB players swing Louisville Slugger® bats. Since the game’s
inception, more pros have gone to the plate gripping a Louisville Slugger® than any other brand. Louisville Slugger® bats have been taken up in the hands of the greatest players in baseball history, including Babe Ruth, Ted Williams, Joe DiMaggio, Stan Musial, Jackie Robinson and Hank Aaron, to name just a few.

Stars of today who also swing Louisville Slugger® bats include Alex Rodriguez, Dustin Pedroia, Jim Thome, David Wright and Joey Votto.

Louisville Slugger® is a name that is synonymous with America’s pastime. Louisville Slugger® is a brand of Kentucky-based Hillerich & Bradsby Co., a fifth-generation family-owned business that also owns and operates Louisville Slugger® Museum & Factory. The Museum & Factory in downtown Louisville features a retrospective of the product and its use throughout baseball history.

Deep Historical Roots

J. F. Hillerich opened his woodworking shop in Louisville in 1855. During the 1880s, Hillerich hired his 17-year-old son, John “Bud” Hillerich. Legend has it that Bud, who played baseball himself, slipped away from work one afternoon in 1884 to watch Louisville’s major league team, the Louisville Eclipse/Colonels.

The team was led by Louis Rogers “Pete” Browning (June 17, 1861 – September 10, 1905), an American center and left fielder in Major League Baseball from 1882 to 1894. He played primarily for the Eclipse/Colonels, becoming one of the sport’s most accomplished batters of the 1880s. A three-time batting champion, he finished among the top three hitters in the league in each of his first seven years. Only twice in his eleven full seasons did he finish lower than sixth.

During the game that summer day, Bud watched Browning, known as “The Gladiator,” break his bat on a bad swing. The star was mired in a hitting slump and was obviously looking for help.

Feeling Browning’s pain, Bud invited the star to his father’s shop to hand-craft for him a new bat made to Browning’s own specifications. Browning accepted the offer and Bud worked his magic to fashion one of the first Hillerich bats.

In the very next game played by the Eclipse, Browning used the bat created just for him by Bud Hillerich to get three hits and immediately break out of his slump. Browning told his teammates about the brilliant bat-building wunderkind, and professional ball players began surging to the Hillerich woodworking shop.

But J.F. Hillerich wasn’t interested in making baseball bats. Instead, the old carpenter saw the company’s future in stair railings, porch columns and swinging butter churns. In fact, for a brief time in the 1880s, he even turned away ball players.

Bud, however, saw the potential in producing baseball bats, and eventually the elder
Hillerich had to give in to his son’s desires.

Part II: Birth of the “Slugger.”