How old is louisville slugger

The rest is baseball history. Patent Office. In the early s, the growing company pioneered a sports marketing concept by paying Hall of Fame hitter Honus Wagner to use his name on a bat—a practice continued today with Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods and many other professional athletes across virtually all sports. By , Louisville Slugger was selling more bats than any other bat maker in the country.

Some years have passed since Bud Hillerich crafted that very first bat for Pete Browning. Since then, Louisville Slugger has sold more than ,, bats, making it without question the most popular bat brand in baseball history.

In the past decade, many national college baseball champions have also hammered their way to the top with Louisville Slugger bats. The business thrived and by the little woodworking shop employed about 20 people.

In , Bud, became an apprentice in his father's shop. Young Bud also played amateur baseball, and made his own baseball bats along with bats for several of his teammates.

According to company legend, the first pro bat was created by year-old Bud for Pete Browning in Browning was a megastar on Louisville's major league team, the Eclipse. One spring afternoon, Bud skipped out of work to watch the Eclipse play. He saw Browning break his bat and offered to make a new one at the woodworking shop.

According to the story, in the next game Browning got three hits with the bat Bud made. Bud was passionate about adding baseball bats to the family business, but his father wanted no part of that product. Fred believed the future of the business was a very popular, patented, swinging butter churn. However, Bud Hillerich continued to push for and improve the bat-making business, and even invented some patented processes.

The name "Louisville Slugger" became their registered trademark in , and Bud joined his father as a partner in The success of the growing bat company took another leap in when Honus "The Flying Dutchman" Wagner, a superstar shortstop for the Pittsburgh Pirates, signed a contract as the first player ever to endorse a bat. Thirty-three years since their last change, Louisville Slugger redesigns their logo.

The closed oval is now open and elongated. The letters "LS" is squeezed in between the outer and inner boarders, at the top. These bats were produced since The labels pictured below are dated to the first catalog appearance and could over lap the new label during the transition year.

The oval was sandwiched between two question mark like one inverted ornate designs. The sample shown is the "Cracker Jack" N o. Other models with this oval design included the "Safe Hit" and "Junior League" models.

The earlier bats features a decal on the barrel. The "NO. T he "f'" like ornate design is also removed. Otherwise the information in the oval remains the same. What Does the stand for? The "" is the catalog number designated for Professional and high quality store model bats.

The highest grade of wood is reserved for all baseball bats.