Of all the great American traditions, there is nothing quite like a trip to the ballpark. Americans are in love with baseball — the heroes, the stories, the thrill of a home run, the tension of a no hitter. For more than a century, this pastime has linked one generation to the next, captured the imagination of whole cities, and brought families and friends together in a bond that can last a lifetime. Just listening to a game on the radio back in the day with those classic announcers: Vin Scully, Red Barber, Joe Garagiola, makes you long for the past — and their magic storytelling skills on those warm summer nights out on the front porch.

Because baseball is about those games on the radio, the afternoons at the ballpark, the heroes, the stats, but mostly the stories. One of the great stories goes back to a spring day in 1884 — when a 17 year old kid, and an early baseball legend, teamed up to re-invent the baseball bat. It was the birth of “The Louisville Slugger.”

When a star player with the Louisville Eclipse pro baseball team, Pete Browning, was in the middle of a hitting slump, Bud Hillerich approached him about making him a custom bat. They worked for hours that night in his father’s wood turning shop in Louisville, Kentucky. The next day, the legend goes, Browning took his new bat, and went 3 for 3.

Almost overnight everything changed for Bud Hillerich, and the game of baseball. The family business is still making custom bats for the pros, and has created one of America’s most interesting museums to tell the story of “Inventing the Lumber.”

At the Louisville Slugger Museum & Factory, you can watch the bats being made, hold one used by Babe Ruth — or many other legends, visit the bat vault — where the original historic models are stored, and take a wonderful trip through the glory days of Americas pastime.

Historic Photographs used with permission of Louisville Slugger Museum & Factory