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 &
Louisville Herald-Post Louisville Herald-Post The Louisville Herald-Post was a newspaper that was published in Louisville, Kentucky. "The Herald-Post" was created in 1925 from the merging of the old "Louisville Herald" and "Louisville Post" newspapers. Louisville financier James Buckner Brown sought to operate the paper as a counter to the positions of the Bingham newspapers the "Louisville Times" and the "Courier-Journal". The "Louisville Post"'s former editor Lewis Craig Humphrey became associate editor of the "Louisville Herald-Post". Brown invested nearly five million dollars in the combined newspapers. Brown lost his fortune in 1930 when his bank holding company BancoKentucky failed. After the BancoKentucky's failure,