Tag: Louisville Slugger

Hall of Fame Vodka

April 8, 2023

After purchasing a case of tonic water on my last grocery shopping trip, I naturally needed a reason to use it, so I stopped by the liquor store this morning to pick up a bottle of gin. Contrary to my plan, however, that did not end up being my only purchase of this trip, as this caught my attention:

I’ve never heard of Hall of Fame Vodka before today, but the marketing genius who put this stuff into baseball bat bottles clearly knows the way into the hearts of suckers like me, because I could not pass this up. When I brought my purchases to the pink-haired gal working the register, I asked when they had gotten these in. She responded, “Oh, I don’t know, a couple of weeks ago, I think?”

“Ah, just in time for baseball season, eh?”

But she gave me this what-the-hell-makes-you-think-I-know-anything-about-baseball look, so I shut up through the rest of the transaction and contented myself with being pleased with the find.

The headquarters for Hall of Fame Vodka appear to be located in Bardstown, Kentucky. Appropriately enough, Bardstown is a mere 45-minute drive from Louisville, home of the Louisville Slugger Museum and Factory. The company does not currently produce any other kind of spirits, but according to their FAQs, they do have a goal to expand their brand in the future.

To celebrate the Royals finally winning two in a row, I’ve decided to go ahead a try a bit of this stuff out this evening. Despite its position on the top shelf, this is hardly premium vodka. I imagine the positioning of the bottles had more to do with how ridiculously tall they are than anything else. But it’s not the cheapest of the cheap, either. I’d probably put it in the same league as Svedka or 360 vodka — not anything I’d want to drink straight, but perfectly decent when mixed in with something.

Cheers!

Louisville Slugger pals

July 11, 2021

Here’s an interesting, even amusing, ad that I stumbled across from the June 1940 issue of Popular Science. The ad features an image of Joe DiMaggio kissing a Louisville Slugger baseball bat, the bat itself bearing a replica of DiMaggio’s signature. The text in the ad reads:

Pals!

“A ballplayer and his Louisville Slugger are like a man and his dog —INSEPARABLE PALS”— says Joe DiMaggio, Famous Yankee home run slugger and A.L. Champion last season.

Go to your dealer’s and look over the 1940 Genuine Autographed Louisville Sluggers. Your favorite ballplayer’s personally autographed bat is among them!

Free 1940 FAMOUS SLUGGER YEAR BOOK
from your dealer or send 5c in stamps or coin to Dept. Z-34
Hillerich & Bradsby Co., Louisville, Ky.

GENUINE Autographed LOUISVILLE SLUGGER BATS

Hillerich & Bradsby Co.
Louisville, KY.

Louisville Slugger - Joe DiMaggio - Popular Science
Popular Science, June 1940

The rise of the aluminum baseball bat

May 1, 2021

I stumbled across the above image while browsing Pinterest a few nights ago, and it sent me down a rabbit hole looking at the history of aluminum baseball bats. For all the reading I did, I wish I could have found more details about aluminum bat history, but I’ll share here what I did manage to find.

William A. Shroyer patented the first metal baseball bat in 1924 (depicted in the image above), though metal bats were not actually seen in baseball until they started getting produced by Worth Sports Company in 1968 (Worth, Inc. is now a division of Rawlings and Jarden Team Sports). Little League Baseball approved of the use of aluminum bats in 1971, and the NCAA legalized the use of aluminum bats in 1974. By 1975, Worth held the majority of the U.S. aluminum bat market and had produced the first official Little League and NCAA Collegiate aluminum bats.

By today’s standards, however, Worth bats really weren’t that great. According to former Ithaca College baseball head coach George Valesente, “[The Worth bats] made a pinging noise. Grips were not comfortable because they weren’t using the proper leather on the grips. Sometimes, it would start to dent and ding.”

In the late-1970s, Easton introduced a bat made from a stronger grade of aluminum and with rubber grips. Louisville Slugger also soon joined the aluminum bat manufacturing business, and the popularity of aluminum bats skyrocketed, though they were not allowed in major league games. At the collegiate and amateur levels, the switch from wood to metal bats served primarily practical purposes. Because wooden bats were easily breakable, teams would often run dry of bats during games. Aluminum bats essentially eliminated this problem.

In 1993, both Easton and Worth introduced titanium bats, and in 1995 Easton and Louisville Slugger introduced an even lighter grade of aluminum bat. Given the continual improvements of bat technology, it is not hard to understand the popularity of metal bats. Compared to their wooden counterparts, aluminum bats allow for greater bat speed and distance on batted balls, primarily as the result of weight distribution and the ability to make aluminum bats stiffer and lighter. Aluminum bats can even be made to weigh up to 5 ounces less than their length in inches.

Metal bats continue to be banned in Major League Baseball for safety and competitive reasons. For players making the transition from using metal bats in high school or college ball to wooden bats in professional ball, struggles frequently abound. The “sweet spot” on an aluminum bat is much larger and the physics of using a metal bat versus a wooden bat are noticeably different. Players have to relearn their swing and retrain their muscle memory, if they hope to become successful at the big league level. Many purists argue in favor of the classic wooden baseball bat, but one can certainly see that aluminum bats have many appealing qualities for a ballplayer.