Louisville Slugger and Hillerich & Bradsby, the Family That Still Turns Bats on Main Street

A Woodworking Shop Before It Was a Bat Company

Louisville Slugger is one of the best-known names in American sport, but the company behind it did not start as a sporting goods maker. It started as a job shop.

According to the company's own history, J. Frederick Hillerich emigrated from Germany to Baltimore with his family in 1842 and moved to Louisville in 1856, where he opened a woodworking shop. By 1864 the business, "J.F. Hillerich, Job Turning," was filling orders for spindles, shutters and steamboat interiors. By 1875 it employed about 20 people. Louisville in that era was a river town, and a shop that could turn wood to order had steady work from builders and boatyards.

A Kentucky Historical Society marker at 118 South First Street marks the site of the Hillerich carpentry shop from 1875 to 1901. Bud Hillerich, J. Frederick's eldest son, was born in 1866 and became an apprentice in his father's shop in 1880, per the museum's timeline.

The Pete Browning Story, and Why Historians Doubt It

The version told on the factory floor for generations goes like this. In 1884, Pete Browning, a star hitter for Louisville's professional team, broke his bat during a slump. Seventeen-year-old Bud Hillerich offered to make him a new one in his father's shop, Browning got three hits the next day, and other players started asking for Hillerich bats. The state marker repeats that account, and the museum presents it as what it is: "company legend."

It is worth knowing that the legend is disputed. In a 2001 article for the Society for American Baseball Research, researcher Bob Bailey traced the Browning story's first appearance in print to a March 1939 trade magazine piece, written more than half a century after the events it describes. Bailey argued that an earlier 1914 newspaper account was more credible. That version places the first bats in the 1883 to 1884 period and has Bud Hillerich using a bat his father turned in 1883. Bailey also noted that the shop's other products at the time, by Bud's own account, included ax handles, bed posts and butter churns.

The precise origin matters less than what came next. The shop kept making bats, and the name evolved. Bailey's research shows the bats were sold as "Hillerich Bats," then "Falls City Sluggers," before the company settled on Louisville Slugger. "Louisville Slugger" became a registered trademark in 1894, and Bud joined his father as a partner in 1897.

From Endorsements to Hillerich & Bradsby

Two moves in the early 1900s shaped the business for the next century.

The first was the player endorsement. In 1905, Honus Wagner signed a contract with the company that the museum describes as "the first time a professional athlete ever endorsed an athletic product," according to the company history. Putting a famous hitter's signature on a retail bat became the model for decades of sporting goods marketing.

The second was the partnership with a salesman. Frank Bradsby joined the company in 1911, became a full partner in 1916, and the business was renamed Hillerich & Bradsby Co. that year. The company still carries that name.

The history is not all growth. The 1937 Ohio River flood damaged the business, and Bradsby died later that year. During both world wars, H&B turned its woodworking capacity to military orders, making gunstocks, track pins and billy clubs in the Second World War, when women worked in the factory for the first time, per the museum's history.

Leaving Louisville and Coming Back

In 1970, H&B branched into aluminum bats and moved its factory across the Ohio River to Southern Indiana. It stayed there until 1995. The company says it moved back because it needed more production room, and in 1996 it opened its headquarters and factory at 800 West Main Street, about seven blocks from the original carpentry shop, according to the company timeline.

The return came with a public face. Outside the new building, H&B installed what Guinness lists as the world's largest baseball bat. The Big Bat went up on October 21, 1995. It is 120 feet tall, weighs 68,000 pounds and is a single piece of steel hand-painted to look like wood grain, modeled on Babe Ruth's R43 bat, WBKO reported on the bat's 30th anniversary. It was built by Caldwell Tanks, a Louisville company better known for water towers. The museum inside opened in July 1996 with a gala featuring Hall of Fame players, per Wikipedia's account of the museum.

For more on the local fabricators behind projects like that, see our guide to manufacturing a product in Louisville.

How a Louisville Slugger Bat Is Made Today

A wood bat starts long before it reaches Main Street. H&B says its bats begin at company timber mills in Galeton and Akeley, Pennsylvania, in the white ash and hard maple country near the Pennsylvania and New York border. A 2025 profile of those mills by City & State Pennsylvania described the process at the forest end:

• A tree takes about 60 years to grow, and a single tree can yield up to 40 bats.
• The best pro-grade wood comes from the center of the tree, where the growth rings are tightest.
• Logs are cut into 40-inch cylinders called billets, graded, and dried in a kiln for roughly a month before being shipped to Louisville.
• Fewer than 5 percent of bats end up pro-grade; the rest go to retail bats sold in sporting goods stores.

At the Louisville factory, billets are turned on lathes to the exact length, weight and profile of a given model. The company keeps the specifications for its models, including the bats of past and present major leaguers, and visitors can look into the Bat Vault, the room where those models are stored, and hold select replicas, per the museum's description. After turning, bats are branded, finished and packed.

The scale is larger than the museum setting suggests. The museum's factory tour page says the plant crafts roughly 1.8 million bats a year and hosts about 12,000 tours annually. That makes the factory both a working plant and one of the most visited manufacturing floors in the region; H&B says the museum and factory draw more than 300,000 guests a year.

The supply chain runs from company-managed forests to a downtown production line, with pro and retail bats coming out of the same building. H&B also sells personalized, custom and corporate bats directly through the museum's site, which keeps a direct-to-consumer channel in the family's hands.

The 2015 Sale to Wilson

In March 2015, H&B announced that it would sell the Louisville Slugger brand to Wilson Sporting Goods for $70 million, subject to shareholder approval, the Associated Press reported. CEO John A. Hillerich IV called the decision difficult and said the company needed a new business model. He also said, "We recognized from our first conversation with Wilson that they would be a great partner and steward of the brand."

The structure is what makes the deal unusual. Wilson bought the brand, not the factory. Under the terms, Wilson took the global marketing, sales and innovation rights to the Louisville Slugger brand, while H&B became the exclusive manufacturer of Louisville Slugger wood bats, produced at its downtown Louisville factory. Wilson completed the acquisition on April 22, 2015. Wilson president Mike Dowse said in that release that Louisville Slugger would "play a central role in the wood bat business."

H&B kept the Louisville Slugger Museum & Factory and gift shop, along with its Bionic Gloves division and the PowerBilt golf brand, per the AP report. It later sold PowerBilt to a joint venture of Hilco Streambank and apparel executive Harry Adjmi, announced in January 2017.

Wilson itself is part of Amer Sports, the Finnish-rooted group whose brands also include Arc'teryx, Salomon and DeMarini. A consortium led by China's Anta Sports took Amer private in 2019, and Amer Sports returned to public markets with a New York Stock Exchange listing under the ticker AS on February 1, 2024, Bicycle Retailer reported. Louisville Slugger was listed among its brands.

So the arrangement in 2026 looks like this: a global, publicly traded sporting goods group owns the name and sells the products; a fifth-generation Louisville family company makes the wood bats and runs the building where the public sees them made.

What H&B Is Now

H&B describes itself as being in its "fifth generation of continuous family ownership." The museum's history identifies John A. Hillerich IV, Bud Hillerich's great-grandson, as president and CEO.

Its businesses are the factory, the museum, the Bionic Gloves line of gloves for golf, fitness and gardening, and Big Bat Bourbon, a bourbon-blending attraction next door to the museum. At Big Bat Bourbon, guests 21 and older take a 45-minute class on how bourbon is blended, make their own recipe, and can order a bottle of it bottled and labeled on site. It is a tourism product rather than a distillery, and it reflects a broader shift at H&B since 2015: the company now earns its living as a contract manufacturer and as an attraction operator, rather than as the owner of a national sporting goods brand.

The lesson for other makers: a company can sell a famous brand and still keep the production work at home if the manufacturing relationship is written into the deal. Our consumer products maker directory lists other Louisville companies building physical goods at different scales.

Visit and Work With Them

The museum and factory tour. The Louisville Slugger Museum & Factory is at 800 West Main Street downtown. The factory tour opens with a film about the forests and mills where bats begin, then walks through the production line, and ends with a free souvenir mini bat in a gallery of player quotes. The museum says visitors will see the factory in action whenever they visit; even on evenings, weekends and holidays when full production may not be running, bat making still happens on every tour, per Wikipedia. Inside the museum, exhibits include a bat Babe Ruth used in a 1927 game and the "Hold a Piece of History" display, where visitors can handle game-used bats, per Wikipedia. Hours and ticket prices are posted on the museum's website; check before you go, because both change.

Premium tours and groups. The museum offers private behind-the-scenes factory tours under its premium tour options, plus group bookings, field trips and event rentals, all listed on its website.

Custom bats. Individuals can order personalized bats online, and businesses can order corporate bats through the museum's custom programs. This is the most direct way to "work with" H&B as an outside customer.

Wood bats for players and teams. Because Wilson holds the brand's sales and marketing rights, Louisville Slugger products sold through stores and team dealers are Wilson's business, while H&B makes the wood bats. Players and teams looking for retail or team orders should start with Wilson.

Bourbon. Big Bat Bourbon is next door and is sold separately or as a combined ticket with the museum. Participants must be 21 or older.

Pair the Slugger tour with a visit to Stoneware & Co., the hand-painted pottery maker in Paristown, and a look at FirstBuild, GE Appliances' microfactory near the University of Louisville. More craft-scale makers are in our craft makers directory.

Frequently Asked Questions

Are Louisville Slugger bats still made in Louisville?

Yes. Hillerich and Bradsby makes Louisville Slugger wood bats at its factory at 800 West Main Street in downtown Louisville. When Wilson Sporting Goods bought the Louisville Slugger brand in 2015, H&B became the exclusive manufacturer of Louisville Slugger wood bats for Wilson. The museum says the factory produces roughly 1.8 million bats a year, and visitors can watch production on the factory tour.

Who owns Louisville Slugger?

Wilson Sporting Goods owns the Louisville Slugger brand. Wilson is part of Amer Sports, which has traded on the New York Stock Exchange since February 2024. Hillerich and Bradsby, the Louisville family company that built the brand, sold it to Wilson in 2015 for a reported 70 million dollars. H&B still owns the Louisville Slugger Museum and Factory and manufactures the wood bats.

Did Pete Browning really inspire the first Louisville Slugger?

That is the company legend, and a Kentucky historical marker repeats it. Baseball historians are less certain. A 2001 Society for American Baseball Research article found that the Browning story first appeared in print in 1939, more than fifty years later, and argued that an earlier 1914 account, which places the first bats around 1883 and 1884, is more credible.

How big is the Big Bat outside the Louisville Slugger Museum?

The Big Bat is 120 feet tall and weighs 68,000 pounds. It is made from a single piece of steel painted to look like wood grain and is modeled on Babe Ruth's R43 bat. Louisville fabricator Caldwell Tanks built it, and it was installed on October 21, 1995, ahead of the museum's opening in July 1996. Guinness lists it as the world's largest baseball bat.

How long does the Louisville Slugger factory tour take, and what does it cost?

The guided factory tour has five stops and usually lasts about 30 minutes, according to Wikipedia's description of the museum, and most visitors also spend time in the museum galleries and Bat Vault. Ticket prices vary by age and change over time, and premium private tours cost more. Check the official museum website for current hours and prices before you go.