Standing amid a major league reproduction of Baltimore’s Camden Yards baseball stadium, a boy still more interested in watching Tony Gwynn than Gwyneth Paltrow picks up a headset and listens to the hitting secrets of Stan Musial and Ted Williams.
In another room, an all-weather Red Sox fan watches once more as Dave Henderson hits his improbable 1986 9th-inning home run, yanking the pennant out of the California Angels’ clutches. “You’re looking at one for the ages here,” announcer Al Michaels marvels. Nearby, visitors in a mock press box hear a 1953 tape of long-time Yankee announcer Mel Allen calling Mickey Mantle’s monumental 565-foot home run. Not far away, we watch bats being turned and branded.
This isn’t Cooperstown. This is Louisville.
This is the Louisville Slugger Museum, opened the summer of 1996 in downtown Louisville, not far from where the company’s first bat was turned over a century ago. One might call this place Cooperstown with clout, a paean to power, an ode to offense, a love letter to lumber.
As in Cooperstown, baseball is king here. Like the Baseball Hall of Fame’s museum, this one uses interactive exhibits, life-sized reproductions, video, audio and a forest full of facts to tell much of baseball’s story from its infancy to its everlasting adulthood. What differentiates this place from Cooperstown’s museum is that the forest here is a literal thing — a diorama of a Northern white ash forest as one might find on the New York-Pennsylvania border, where the wood to make Louisville Slugger bats is grown. The emphasis in this museum is on bats’ raison d’etre: hitting.
Which is not to say pitching is ignored. The men on the mound are not depicted as the fools on the hill. Yet the pitching exhibit doesn’t offer a tip of the cap to hurlers as much as it shows what a batter is up against.
Visitors stand behind a net. On the other side of the net is a life-sized dummy of a catcher made of metal, foam and padded quilts. The visitor pushes a button. The image of a modern day pitcher of your choice appears on a video screen 35 feet away.
The pitcher on screen winds up and throws; a baseball shoots out of a hole in the screen and comes right at you. You wince. The ball plunks the artificial catcher. Ouch! You hear that a batter has two-tenths of a second to decide not only whether or not to swing, but also to judge what part of the plate the ball will cross.
The bat makers in Louisville mean business. Elsewhere in the museum, short films selected by visitors are shown on a screen on a reproduced baseball scoreboard.
The most famous home run of all time merits its own film. In fact, the scoreboard is set up to tell the story. The Brooklyn Dodgers are ahead of the New York Giants 4 to 2 in the bottom of the 9th. Batting is No. 23, Bobby Thomson. There is one out, one strike on the batter. Anyone who knows baseball lore is aware of the setting: the 1951 playoffs for the National League pennant.
Push a button. The film starts and background is given. The Dodgers are 13 1/2 games up in August. Then the Giants win 16 games in a row and the regular season ends in a tie. In a three-game playoff, the teams split the first two. The title comes down to this at bat. Bobby Thomson connects. Announcer Russ Hodges emits verbal fireworks: “THE GIANTS WIN THE PENNANT, THE GIANTS WIN THE PENNANT, THE GIANTS WIN THE PENNANT.” (And one wonders with today’s wild card teams and watered-down playoff system if there could ever again be such excitement over a pennant race.)
Elsewhere, via headsets, batboys tell batting secrets of the best. In a mock press box one hears snippets of noted announcers such as Mel Allen, Red Barber, Curt Gowdy and Vin Scully broadcasting legend-making hits as they happened. From Gowdy one hears Ted Williams’ 1960 home run in his last career at bat. From Barber, it’s Cookie Lavagetto’s clutch 9th inning double in the 1947 World Series, sucking the breath out of Bill Bevens’ attempt at the first Series no-hitter.
Then there is the introductory video, 15 minutes long and a testimonial to the art of making bat meet ball. Dusty Baker talks about playing ball with his brother in his backyard. Johnny Bench confesses that there is no more gravel in the driveway of his boyhood home; he hit away every rock while practicing his swing for years.
The museum also offers a tribute to the folks who make the bats. Louisville Sluggers are made by Hillerich & Bradsby Co.
IF YOU GO
– THE BASICS
The Louisville Slugger Museum is in downtown Louisville at 800 W. Main St. (corner of Main and 8th). It is easily recognized — look for the 120-foot-high bat outside the door. The museum and factory tour are open 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Saturday. Admission: $5 adults, $4.50 ages 60 and older, $3 ages 6-12. Allow one to two hours inside.
Parking is on the street — if you’re lucky — or in a pay garage on 8th Street (heading west on Main, take a left just before the museum onto 8th and follow to garage).
– LODGING
Hyatt Regency, 320 W. Jefferson; 502-587-3434. Doubles $194 weekdays, $99-$119 weekends.
The Camberley Brown, Broadway and 4th; 502-583-1234. Doubles $189 weekdays, $109 weekends.
Club Hotel at Doubletree, 101 E. Jefferson; 502-585-2200. Doubles $89.
The Inn at Jewish Hospital, 100 E. Jefferson; 502-582-2481. Doubles $99.
– INFORMATION
Louisville Slugger Museum, 800 W. Main St., Louisville, Ky. 40202; 502-588-7228; fax 502-588-1179; Web site www.slugger.com/museum
