Inside the Louisville Slugger Museum & Factory [Photos]

(Yes, I am in Louisville, Ky., right now. And yes, the coolest part about the city is the Louisville Slugger Museum & Factory.)

For starters…
  
Those are Babe Ruth’s and Lou Gehrig’s plaques side by side.

Here’s me outside of the museum with what I’m assuming is the biggest Louisville Slugger bat in existence.
I wasn’t expecting to see this, but this was a nice tribute to one of Nick Swisher’s charities.
   
The Slugger on the left is one Derek Jeter got for his mother Dorothy (raised money for breast cancer research) and on the right is an authentic Alex Rodriguez bat. 
Lastly, here’s a picture of me posing with a Ruth prototype.

Unfortunately the tour guide — who was hilarious — didn’t let us take photos of the factory’s machinery because there are at least 30 other bat making companies.

Some fun facts about the factory:

• Making a bat with a wooden lathe takes a professional craftsman 30 minutes to make a professional bat.
• A CNC lathe can turn a bat in 30 seconds and is laser accurate.
• Louisville Slugger charges around $50 for ash bats and $83 for maple bats.
• There are nine approved finishes for bats, one of which is named after Tony Gwynn. Another well-known finish is called “Hornsby” for Rogers Hornsby.

---
Sorry for the slow posting lately, but I hope you find my excuse valid. I’ve been in Louisville since Wednesday attending a national media convention with other members of student media at Quinnipiac University.

Sadly, the hosting hotel for the convention wasn’t prepared for a thousand young journalists to be using the Web at the same time and it’s been incredibly hard to access the Internet. I’m returning to school (and full Internet access) Sunday so you can expect my regular posting schedule to continue. Thanks for bearing with me!