Anyone see the Louisville Slugger factory on American Builder?

[Vintagedeputy]

Caught a few minutes of it. Nice story.......the guy worked that worked there for 38 years says he doesnt have but a few bats at home..........man!

[momen55]

what channel was this on and when???:mad:

[BMH]

Yeah, most my guys have been making bats since before I was born yet if it isn't Kentucky basketball they don't care much for it...

[bigtruck260]

Yeah, most my guys have been making bats since before I was born yet if it isn't Kentucky basketball they don't care much for it...

Hey Brian -

Just curious...what kind of work week do you have? How much time is dedicated to new product lines vs. pumping out MiLB and MLB product?

Hope that's not too intrusive. Not many of us get to work in an environment where our family name is emblazoned all over baseball archives for 100+ years.

What a truly great experience.

[Vintagedeputy]

what channel was this on and when???:mad:

It was the other afternoon. I was channel surfing. Not sure what channel it was.

[DRILLINDK]

Hope this helps:

AMERICAN BUILDER,
Season 4, Episode 63: Louisville Slugger Factory (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1110913/)

4 October 2007

[BMH]

Hey Brian -

Just curious...what kind of work week do you have? How much time is dedicated to new product lines vs. pumping out MiLB and MLB product?

Hope that's not too intrusive. Not many of us get to work in an environment where our family name is emblazoned all over baseball archives for 100+ years.

What a truly great experience.

My days are actually very boring, most of it involving paperwork. I'll spend a few hours a week working with different vendors trying to improve finishes and equipment. Most the breakthroughs come from my workers. They will see an easier way or better way to do something and I'll get it implemented. I spot check bats on the floor to see if they match the traveler's. Making sure the finish, length and weight are good. We have several new people in the factory. Most the mistakes of late have been putting the wrong shipping label on the boxes. We shipped Josh Bards sig test bats to someone else last week. Just got them back today.

Dealing with unhappy customers is another joy of my work week. They'll send bats back in and we'll check them to see if any defect is in the wood. Most the time there isn't but you'll find ball marks on the wrong sides of the bat. This even goes for Maple but most people don't know that. A lot of our returns are from contract players so I smile and politely tell them sorry for the bad wood and make them new ones.

I'll spend on average 2-3 hours a week making new models. I've gotten faster at it since I started, now I'm just lazy. A simple but very tedious process I don't look forward to doing. In fact I'm typing this instead of working on new models for Chris Young and Justin Upton. I just finished a new one for Dan Uggla. Hopefully they'll like them and use them but I'm not holding my breath.

I log completed travelers (work orders) into our system and I'll create all the shipping tickets (yellow copies) and get them to the shipping department.

We've been working on different drying techniques for Maple but that's slowed down until we hear more from MLB and their plans for Maple.

[bigtruck260]

Brian -

Thanks for taking the time. It might be tedious for you, but I would much rather make bats than hormone products for menopausal women....

Don't even bother asking. Not worth it.

Cheers.

[DonTheLegend]

Brian -

Thanks for taking the time. It might be tedious for you, but I would much rather make bats than hormone products for menopausal women....

Don't even bother asking. Not worth it.

Cheers.

i agree 150%.

i would rather (most of the time) make something an MLB player would use rather than sit in front of a computer and scream at employees all day.

however, i just finished designing and manufacturing a prototype (electrical enclosure) for a company called Global Spectrum.

Global Spectrum provides pre-opening design and construction consulting services for the development phase of facilities under construction.

basically the build sports arenas and conventions cetners.

their parent company owns the Philadelphia Flyers (NHL), the Philadelphia 76ers (NBA), the Philadelphia Phantoms (AHL).


...to echo Daves sentiments, thanks for the insight Brian. very cool stuff.

[70to66]

Hey Brian,
What happens to the rejects the contract players send back?

[hiramman]

Missed the tv show, but toured the factory & museum a couple of summers ago and it is very, very interesting and the museum portion is awesome. Well worth the trip if you're ever in that part of the country. Also Louisville Slugger Field - home of the AAA Louisville Bats is one of the most beautiful & nicest minor league parks you'll ever see. Toured the factory, had a picnic, & caught a game all in the same day. I'd highly recommend visiting.

[shoremen44]

I'm heading to Louisville in two weeks for work, and I am looking forward to stopping by the museum...

[BMH]

Hey Brian,
What happens to the rejects the contract players send back?

Most the time they're put into our BPAS racks. Maggilo sent back a dozen that were too light. So we put them in the racks for the Minor League players to pick out when they come to the factory. Others bats are used in our promotion/charity rack depending on who it is. Pujols had sent back some bats a year or so ago and one of my employees is a big St. Louis fan so I gave one of them to him.

If the bat is sent back for "bad wood" or something along those lines I'll conduct tests on them to see if they're really bad or not. It usually involves cutting them up.

Dave....good point :)

[Vintagedeputy]

BMH - can you use a Richmond, Va. based sales person? :)

[70to66]

I stopped for the tour about three or four years ago, they were making Pujols bats the day I was there. I wanted to pick one up off the cart and swing it a couple of times, but knew I should stay inside the yellow lines. I really liked the tour, but thought the factory would be alot bigger. The father in law of my boss was under contract back in the 60's, it was neat to find his name on the wall in the front lobby.
70to66

[BMH]

Thanks for the offer but that might make the current sale rep a little upset;)

We've condensed the factory a great deal since the Seventies. We used to employee over 400 factory workers to make bats and golf clubs. We got as low as 22 and now we're back up to 57. Hopefully it's a trend that will continue as long as it doesn't cut into aluminum/composite sales too much. I know a lot of people don't like them but it's what supports the wood division.

Here's a link to a website I post on a lot. There are a couple different bat turners who post on it. I've learned a great deal from the people on that board just as I've learned a lot from the people here. Some of you guys probably know more about H&B than I do!

http://baseball-fever.com/showthread.php?t=41368