Louisville Slugger Museum

As a life-long baseball fan, I can't believe it's taken me this long to visit the Louisville Slugger Museum. Especially since it's only a two-hour drive from Indianapolis.

The museum is part of a museum district in the historic downtown area of Louisville. Other museums nearby of note include the Science Center/IMAX, Muhammed Ali Center and Glassworks.

Located on Main Street, I found a two-hour parking meter one block away, however, there are also a couple of $5 lots and parking garages nearby.

Driving down Main St. and wondering when you'll see the museum? Just keep watch on your left for the giant baseball bat towering above the building.

Once inside the doors, the gift shop and exhibit room are off to the left, the ticket booth just past them and then another exhibit room, theater and a batting cage farther down the hall.

The cost of admission is well worth it. It's $10 for adults, $5 for kids 6-12, and kids 5 and under are free. (That was nice).

The price of admission includes a 30-minute tour through the middle of the factory floor. While making numerous stops with your small guided group, you'll get to see the transformation of a billet (the cylindrical piece of ash or maple) into a baseball bat. First stop - an old-fashioned lathe where it used to take more than two hours for a craftsman to shape a baseball bat.

The next stop shows the new, automated lathe that shaves it down within 30 seconds.

During our 30-minute tour, the factory churns out enough bats to give every player on your favorite team's starting lineup three bats. Overall, the factory makes more than 1.8 million bats for major and minor leaguers, and amateurs.

Throughout the tour, we had the chance to handle sample bats at nearly every stop, including the bats of great players such as Alex Rodriquez and Derek Jeter.

The tour shows them branding the Louisville Slugger logo and the player's signature into the wood, and finally, the bats getting dipped into colored finish.

It's a very interesting journey.

The exhibit hall is filled with numerous bats and artifacts from various eras. One of Joe DiMaggio's bats from his record-setting hitting streak is on display, as is the bat Hank Aaron used to hit his 500th home run. George Brett's famous "pine tar" bat is also included.

Step over to the far wall of the room and 60 feet 6 inches is marked off behind glass. A video projector of a major league pitcher plays as a 90 mph fastball shoots out into the glove of an inflatable catcher. Stand beside this exhibit and it doesn't take long to realize how hard it is to be a major league hitter. (The ball gets to the plate in less than 1/3 of a second!)

Life-size figurines of Babe Ruth, Ken Griffey Jr. and Ted Williams also fill the exhibit room.

A separate exhibit room paid tribute to the Negro Leagues with contemporary artwork as well as artifacts. An original glove of Satchel Paige and Willie Mays were on display, as well as Roy Campanella's 1955 NL MVP award.

The movie playing during our visit was a 12-minute flick about hitting, narrated by James Earl Jones. Can't go wrong with that.

Before hitting the gift shop, our final stop was the batting cage. Anyone age 6 and older is welcome to take 10 swings for $1. I'm happy to say I connected solidly with quite a few of the 10 40 mph pitches I saw, and my son was outstanding facing some 20 mph pitches.

Allow about 2 hours to take the tour and see the exhibits.