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Yesterday my father-in-law, son and I went to the Louisville Slugger museum and factory. Our factory tour(no cameras allowed)consisted of seeing several of the processes that are used on LS bats.
One of the tour highlights that I was looking forward to was the "powerized" process that LS uses on their pro-model bats. This was never explained or showed to us during the tour.
After the tour was over, and the little mini-bats were handed out to everyone, I asked the tour guide to explain the powerized process on the wooden bats.
According to Vince Malta's book "A complete Reference Guide to Louisville Slugger professional Player bats" Powerized is a process of - "a process that involves impregnating glue resin into the wood grain of bats." This has been done to virtually every pro H&B bat made since 1932.
The guide's response to my question was, "It is nothing....powerized is a process that we use on our aluminum bats and it means nothing to the wooden bat." I responded by telling him that they didn't make aluminum bats back in the 30's when they started putting powerized on the pro model bats.
He looked a little confused but kept to his story. He even said that, "They tried to take off the powerized word off the wooden bats....but the pro players like having it on their bats."
I gave him a "What the heck" look. I asked him if he was familiar with Vince Malta or his book....he was not.
Now I'm guessing that one of a few things are possible.
1. The guy is clueless.
2. It is a patented process that they don't want to talk about....but why would that be since they've been doing it since the 30's.
3. The guy is clueless.
That's my take.
After the tour was over, the tour guide was roaming around the museum and I pointed out a Dimaggio bat in the 1940's that had powerized on it. I said loudly, "See this bat proves that they put powerized on wooden bats before they even thought about making aluminum bats." He just smiled.
I was a little more than dissapointed about his response.
In retrospect, the tour was good, funny, and informative. I saw tons of gamers being made for big time/name ball players. That was the coolest part.
In the museum, they had some very very cool gamers from some of the all time greats of the game.
Not to complain too much, but they had a section of the museum where you could handle some gamers with white gloves. One of the gamers was a Mantle. On a quick exam, it was obvious that this bat never saw any game action at all. No rack marks, ball marks, cleat marks, pine tar, player markings at all. It was no doubt a game model...but no way a gamer that they were passing it off to be. I said something to the attendent and he admitted that they weren't sure. I told him that I was sure and gave him the evidence that I listed above. He just smiled.
30 seconds later he was handing in his own words, "A bat that was used by Mickey Mantle" to the next person in line. OH BROTHER.
On the whole, I loved the museum. It was a great experience. Just do not go looking to find any new information from visiting the museum...if you are an informative gamer lover. The guys working the museum/factory don't have much working knowledge of the history of their bats. If you go knowing that...you will have a much better time.
I'll try to post pics later.
One of the tour highlights that I was looking forward to was the "powerized" process that LS uses on their pro-model bats. This was never explained or showed to us during the tour.
After the tour was over, and the little mini-bats were handed out to everyone, I asked the tour guide to explain the powerized process on the wooden bats.
According to Vince Malta's book "A complete Reference Guide to Louisville Slugger professional Player bats" Powerized is a process of - "a process that involves impregnating glue resin into the wood grain of bats." This has been done to virtually every pro H&B bat made since 1932.
The guide's response to my question was, "It is nothing....powerized is a process that we use on our aluminum bats and it means nothing to the wooden bat." I responded by telling him that they didn't make aluminum bats back in the 30's when they started putting powerized on the pro model bats.
He looked a little confused but kept to his story. He even said that, "They tried to take off the powerized word off the wooden bats....but the pro players like having it on their bats."
I gave him a "What the heck" look. I asked him if he was familiar with Vince Malta or his book....he was not.
Now I'm guessing that one of a few things are possible.
1. The guy is clueless.
2. It is a patented process that they don't want to talk about....but why would that be since they've been doing it since the 30's.
3. The guy is clueless.
That's my take.
After the tour was over, the tour guide was roaming around the museum and I pointed out a Dimaggio bat in the 1940's that had powerized on it. I said loudly, "See this bat proves that they put powerized on wooden bats before they even thought about making aluminum bats." He just smiled.
I was a little more than dissapointed about his response.
In retrospect, the tour was good, funny, and informative. I saw tons of gamers being made for big time/name ball players. That was the coolest part.
In the museum, they had some very very cool gamers from some of the all time greats of the game.
Not to complain too much, but they had a section of the museum where you could handle some gamers with white gloves. One of the gamers was a Mantle. On a quick exam, it was obvious that this bat never saw any game action at all. No rack marks, ball marks, cleat marks, pine tar, player markings at all. It was no doubt a game model...but no way a gamer that they were passing it off to be. I said something to the attendent and he admitted that they weren't sure. I told him that I was sure and gave him the evidence that I listed above. He just smiled.
30 seconds later he was handing in his own words, "A bat that was used by Mickey Mantle" to the next person in line. OH BROTHER.
On the whole, I loved the museum. It was a great experience. Just do not go looking to find any new information from visiting the museum...if you are an informative gamer lover. The guys working the museum/factory don't have much working knowledge of the history of their bats. If you go knowing that...you will have a much better time.
I'll try to post pics later.
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