Louisville Slugger Bats
One of the most well-known bat manufacturers to ever exist: Louisville Slugger. While the brand has come to be known by just about everyone - baseball fan or not - the brand came to be after a father and son attended a Louisville Eclipse game, the city’s major league team.
John A. Hilllerich, who also went by the name of Bud, was an apprentice at his father’s woodworking shop. At the Louisville Eclipse game, superstar Pete Browning broke his bat. Hillerich offered to make the slumping slugger a new bat. This wasn’t the first bat he had made. As an amateur baseball player and a long-time lover of the sport, he had crafted some bats for himself and his teammates in the past.
At the mere age of 17, Hillerich created a bat for Browning, then known as ‘The Louisville Slugger’. The use of this hand-crafted bat launched the brand and has been the root of what made Louisville Slugger one of the most iconic bat brands in history.
After Browning’s debut of the bat, the rest of his teammates flooded to the Hillerich shop looking to get their hands on a similar bat. While Bud Hillerich was enthusiastic about the demand for bats, his father had no desire to pivot away from banisters, porch columns, and the like. In 1894, Bud took over the business and registered Louisville Slugger with the US patent office. In 1905, the company was not only patented but the bat was now being endorsed by professional players.
To this day, Louisville Slugger continues to make high-quality bats for players who love the game. If you’re looking for a bat that has been popular with players for decades upon decades, you can’t go wrong with a Louisville Slugger.
Shop the large selection of Louisville Slugger baseball bats and Louisville Slugger softball bats online. Take advantage of the endless discounts available to our members when you become a member of Bat Club USA.