Louisville Slugger has impacted the evolution of the baseball bat by showing continued excellence through the years. They have shown this excellence by making changes to be current with the world. One change they have made is adding Maple bats into their product line even if they don’t agree with it. White Ash was the main source of what bats were made out of until Barry Bonds, in 2001, broke the single season home run record. His bat was made of Maple. Now the market is close to split on the type of bat sold. Both of the types of bats have positives and negatives. The positives of White ash are that it is a strong timber, it is lighter than Maple, and it has a flexible quality that Maple doesn’t have. The negative is that after extensive …show more content…
use of the bat, it seems to break or flake. The positives of Maple are that it is denser, heavier than ash, and it doesn’t break and flake as easily. The negative is that the wood is heavier, so it is much harder to make a lightweight Maple bat. The type of bat depends on the person buying it, and what they like. Louisville Slugger prefers White Ash, but they have changed to using Maple too which is about fifty percent of their wood bat market (Cantu). Also, Louisville Slugger has stayed current in the world with their technology. When they first started to make bats, they carved them by hand, but they bought a new machine to quicken the process and create larger profit margins. They have done this with a Computer Numerical Control machine(CNC) which Louisville Slugger programmed to cut wood into baseball bat shapes. They started using these machines in 2002, and it has helped them increase their profit margins by a lot (Terdiman). It used to take them fifteen minutes to carve a bat, but now they can do it in seconds. Louisville Slugger has also gone into the aluminum bat business. The rise of aluminum bats have been tremendous, and Louisville Slugger has been right at the top. Many college baseball teams that have won the College Baseball World Series in the past years have been using aluminum Louisville Sluggers (“History”). In 1970, they started this by signing a deal with Alcoa Aluminum company to manufacture their aluminum bats. Their aluminum bats aren’t manufactured in Louisville, yet the wooden bats are (“Timeline”). This has made a lot of money for Louisville Slugger. Like before, Louisville Slugger has made over 8,000 variations of a wooden baseball bat to help create the best bat they can make (“Facts”). Louisville Slugger has had to change their locations and adapt to different owners over the years. They have moved and rebuilt their headquarters many times from floods and fires. Two large moves are in 1968, when Louisville Slugger moved to the Portland Federal Building in downtown Louisville, and when they moved to the location where they are today at 800 West Main Street, Louisville, Kentucky. Louisville Slugger has had to move on and prosper after the deaths of their owners like J.F. Hillerich in 1924, Frank Bradsby in 1937, John A. (Bud) Hillerich in 1946, Ward Hillerich in 1949, John A. Hillerich Jr. in 1969. Now John A. Hillerich IV is the owner of the company after succeeding his father, John A. Hillerich III in 2001. This is a family owned business that has been able to survive through over one hundred and twenty years (“Timeline”). Louisville Slugger has been able to show continued excellence through the years by improving the process of making the baseball bat. This all starts with John A. Hillerich IV who gets to the factory at five AM to get the machines started because they take a hour to get ready. He is always moving around and watching the production of the bats to make sure the process is complete, and the bats are coming out to their best of their ability (Goulet). The first steps are selecting the tree and cutting it down. The trees are from the northeast of the U.S. in Pennsylvania and New York (Oldham). Louisville Slugger owns around 8,500 acres up there (Cantu). These acres are full of Maple and White Ash trees. These are some of the best trees for making bats. They use about 40,000 trees per season that are between forty to sixty years old. The tree's branches are cut off, and the wood is trucked into their facility. The tree is cut into forty inch sections, and afterward, it is cut into 37 inch lengths and three inch diameter cylinders of wood called billets. The billets are dried in kilns for six to eight weeks before being shipped to Louisville Slugger’s factory in Louisville (Oldham). While this process happens, the billets are inspected for defects, weighed, and sorted by quality (“Facts”). At last, the cutting begins. The billets are cut into baseball bats by the CNC machines with knobs at the end.
The CNC machine is programmed to do this with special lathes to get the specific cut of a baseball bat (Oldham). The CNC machine was starting to be used by Louisville Slugger in 2002 (Terdiman). “...a CNC machine is programmed with over 2,200 bat styles, all developed with major leaguers” (Goulet). Then the knobs are cut off and sanded with a 80 grit sandpaper, and the bat is weighed. The bat goes through many cycles of different sanders until it gets to the logo stage. This is where the Louisville Slugger logo is burned while applying pressure onto the side of the bat, and thus, it is sanded again (Oldham). The next part is the look of the bat other than the logo. Some bats get a natural or flame burned finish (Oldham). The bats can also be painted with different colors of lacquer, which is like a strong paint. The bat can be all black, red, brown, white, half natural wood and half black, and many other different styles. Following, the bats are hung to dry. In addition, if a player is under contract, their name can be printed onto the bat (Cantu). Lastly, the bats are packed and shipped off to where they need to be. One man can make 200 to 300 bats a day (Oldham). This process is a lot more efficient than the process when Bud made his first
bats. Louisville Slugger has lead the rise of its company with their growth and expertise in the baseball bat. They have done this by owning the market. They make more than 1.4 million wood Louisville Sluggers for professional and amateurs to use yearly. This is around seventy to eighty percent of the retail market (Oldham). That is what owning the market looks like. The Louisville Slugger is the known brand by anyone that thinks of a baseball bat. Most college baseball teams use Louisville Sluggers, and most sandlots and ameteur player games use Louisville Sluggers. The bat has broken more records than any player and has been swung more than any other kind of bat. It is a name that baseball helped build itself on. Louisville Slugger has made and sold over 100,000,000 bats and is the most popular brand in baseball history. By 1923, early in Louisville Slugger’s history, they were selling more bats than any other brand. This was when baseball became the nation’s favorite pastime (“Our”). This all shows how Louisville Slugger has impacted the evolution of the baseball bat by showing continued excellence through the years with their advancement in wooden baseball bat science and their leadership of the baseball bat since they became a company. With the invention of the standard baseball bat, Louisville Slugger has impacted the evolution of the baseball bat by creating a viable market for it and showing continued excellence through the years.They have done this by Bud creating the bat with his skills and Browning’s expertise, people’s reaction to the bat, the affordability of the bats to the public that professionals use, creating a new way of marketing with players signatures, making special orders for companies and players, adapting and making changes through the years, always working to make a better bat, and leading the rise of the baseball bat and baseball’s upcoming. That is how Louisville Slugger has become who they are. “Louisville Slugger has been the bat millions of little ballplayers swing the first time they ever step up to the plate. It’s the bat of choice for thousands in sandlots, Little League games and big-league stadiums all over the country. And it’s been the bat in the hands of professional baseball’s greatest players when they’ve broken records, set the standards and wowed the crowds” (Oldham).
High tech aluminum baseball bats aren’t quite as new to the game as many people may think. Author, Patrick Hruby, wrote in Sports Illustrated, “introduced in the mid-1970’s… metal bats have become increasingly potent, forged with alloys… pressurized air chambers” (Hruby 42). Over the last few decades these aluminum ‘killer bats’ have evolved to be even more potent. “Some coaches and players claim these powerful bats are ruining the integrity of the game and placing pitchers at undue risk” (42). Every college, divisions I through III, are using these bats religiously. Each year bigger and better bats are at each team’s fingertips. A few of the more popular bats this year are the TPX C555 Platinum, TPX Omaha, and the EASTON Redline, just to name a few. These bats are so advanced that almost everything about them has changed, for instance, “…an
Albert G. Spalding created the first major league baseball glove. “Wearing a glove just wasn’t manly” said Smithsonian. It used to be that the strongest player on the field was whoever had the most broken fingers or blisters, but after a while, players realised they
Book Report on Baseball: A History of America's Game by Benjamin G. Rader In "Baseball: A History of America's Game", the Author Benjamin G. Rader discusses the history of baseball and how it developed to present day. Rader explains how baseball started as a simple game consisting of no rules besides the players using a stick to hit a ball and its constant evolution to what the game is today. He also displays several issues which America's favorite sport has had while developing into the complex sport it is today. Although baseball has had several trials and tribulations throughout its history, it still remains America's favorite pastime.
Or maybe alloy bats and composite bats The middle of the ball is called the “Cork”. The core of the ball is made of long fiber kapok, in 2004 high-visibility yellow optic covering. Alloy bat son the other hand, are thinner and have more responsive barrels. Alloy bats are also more durable because they are made of aluminum. Composite bats are made of a carbon fiber,graphite, and fiberglass, and some also have kevlar. Kevlar is a synthetic fiber of high tensile strength used especially as a reinforcing agent in the manufacture of tires and other rubber products and protective gear such as helmets and vests. There are many different parts of the bats which is a big part to make the player and who they are on the field. There is a knob which is the very base of the bat. Directly above that there is the grip for the players so they can grip the bat on the handle. Above the grip there is the barrel of the bat where the ball hits, it is also the thickest part of the baton top of that is the end cap on the end of the bat.
Torque is another key ingredient to a good power hitter, or even a good hitter. Torque is the result of two forces being applied to an object in opposite directions. In this case the two forces are being applied from the hands and wrists onto the bat. As you start your swing, instead of moving your hands directly at the ball, you want your hands to start a rotation. The top hand begins to move backwards while the lead arm drives the end of the bat towards the ball. The torque invloved is created around the point of the bat that lies between your hands. This torque greatly accelerates the head of the bat which will have act with a greater force when (or if ) it comes into contact with the ball.
I Never Had It Made. New Jersey: Ecco Press, 1995. Smith, Robert. The. Pioneers of Baseball. Boston: Little, Brown, 1978.
Every baseball fan knows of the term spitball. A spitball is when the pitcher spits his tobacco juices onto the b...
It’s a Sunday afternoon and the whole family is over at grandmother’s house playing a fun game of pickup baseball until they realize they do not know how to hit a baseball. Luckily, it is a rather simple process that can easily be taught and learned. Hitting a baseball is not nearly as hard as it seems. Professional baseball players make hitting a baseball either look very easy or extremely hard. To begin the process, the following items are needed: a bat, a baseball, and baseball gloves so that the hit baseball can be caught.
Baseball is a fascinating sport that is exceptionally fun to play. This assignment is all about understanding the physics of a few key aspects of this sport. One might ask what physics could have to do with baseball? Like most sports baseball involves physical motion. Baseball encompasses all three planes of motion through throwing, hitting, and fielding. All of the classical laws of mechanics can be applied to understand the physics of this game.
...ame between Chicago Cubs and Tampa Bay Devil Rays in June 4th, 2003 after umpires found cork in his shattered bat. Sosa claims that it was an honest mistake and saying, “I use that bat for batting practice; it’s something that I take the blame for. It’s a mistake, I know that, I feel sorry, I just apologize to everybody that are embarrassed.” Sosa was 17th in the career home run list and people started to question were any of his 505 home runs also fraud. The cause for Sosa using the corked bat was because he was having a bad year in his 2003 season as a Chicago Cubs, not hitting a lot of home runs and being injured. The result of Sammy Sosa cheating in this game resulted in an 8 game suspension for the Cubs star.
First off, the knuckle ball. It is called the hardest pitch to hit. A pitch that seemingly floats like a butterfly and then magically drops into the strike zone, dumbfounding the batter and almost always resulting in a strike out. But how is this pitch actually thrown? The name of the pitch essentially entails how the pitch is thrown, the pitcher curls his fingers into his hand, placing the knuckles of his fingers on the ball, and releasing the ball in this manner and fashion. But why does this work? It comes down to the position of the laces. By throwing the ball off the pitcher’s knuckles, the ball exhibits no spin throughout the entire duration of the pitch. This allows different lift forces within the air is passes to exert themselves upon the ball. By doing this, the ball is subject to different planar movements as a result of different lift forces manifesting themselves upon the baseball that is thrown. In a simplistic explanation, this is why a knuckle ball “knuckles” as it is thrown.
In this exploration, I plan to discuss those factors and ultimately, the math behind what makes a baseball curve. I also plan to find the equation for how much a slider will curve. The main reason a baseball curves is due to the Magnus Effect. Named for its founder, Gustav
The main Frisbee game in the world is the game Ultimate Frisbee. The game begins in the late 1960s the game ultimate started by to guys named Joel Silver and Jared Kass. Joel Silver was a graduate from Lafayette College, he was on the Frisbee team of fall in the year 1968. Other students got with Silver and he claimed it to be the ultimate game experience. He got the sport from Frisbee football, and that was likely learned by Jared Kass. The first ultimate game was played in 1972, and the teas who played agents each other where Princeton and Rutgers. The Rutgers had beat Princeton on the same field in the same college football game 103 years before. The rules of the game are played differently depending on the place and the level of competition.