History of Louisville, Kentucky charter member. While the Grays were a relatively short-lived team, playing for only two years, they began a much longer lasting relationship between the city and baseball. In 1883, John "Bud" Hillerich made his first baseball bat from white ash in his father's wood shop. The first bat was produced for Pete "The Gladiator" Browning of the Louisville Eclipse (minor league team). The bats eventually become known by the popular name, "Louisville Slugger", and the local company Hillerich & Bradsby rapidly became one of the largest manufacturers of baseball bats and other sporting equipment in the world. Today, Hillerich &
Ted Williams (who, like Williams, also retired with 521 career home runs), Rickey Henderson and Omar Vizquel. Williams was an obsessive student of hitting. He famously used a lighter bat than most sluggers, because it generated a faster swing. David Halberstam's "Summer of '49" recalls him warning teammates not to leave their bats on the ground as they would absorb moisture and become heavier. His biographer Leigh Montville relates the often told story that Hillerich & Bradsby presented Williams with four bats weighing 34 ounces and one weighing 33 1/2 ounces, and challenged him to identify the lighter bat, which he was