Inside the Louisville Slugger Museum, a voice intones, "the crack of the bat is the heart of the game." That statement, made as part of a short movie on America’s favorite pastime, pretty much sums up Hillerich & Bradsby Company’s far-reaching reputation. The Louisville company is internationally known as the maker of Louisville Slugger baseball bats.

"I think that we’re an American icon," said Bill Williams, vice president of public relations for H & B. "Men, particularly, grew up with us."

The company’s $13.5 million headquarters sits at the corner of Eighth and Main streets in downtown Louisville. It houses the corporate offices, a golf club factory and the Louisville Slugger Museum, part of which is the working factory that produces wooden Louisville Sluggers.

H & B is a family-owned, privately-held company. It employs approximately 400 people nationwide and has "roughly $100 million a year in sales," according to Williams. Approximately 200 of its employees are based in Louisville.

The company is an interesting mix of both history and up-to-date business savvy. It has distributors in "almost every country," noted Williams, and is extremely popular in the Far East.

"They’re frantic about baseball in Japan," he said.

Baseball is obviously at the heart of H & B’s success. Ironically, though, it loses money on its signature wooden bats.

"The wood bats are a losing proposition," said Williams. "We lose money on wood bats and have for 10 years."

Although professional baseball players still use wood bats, everyone else, from amateurs to Little Leaguers, now use aluminum bats.

But the company -- which doesn’t have to worry about stockholder profits -- will continue to make its trademark wooden bats, said Williams. And it will continue to sign professional baseball players to contracts and burn their signatures into the bats.

"There’s really no marketing edge to signing all these great players anymore," Williams noted.

Children used to be able to go to a store and purchase the actual model used by their favorite baseball player.

"Nowadays that doesn’t mean anything because kids don’t use wood bats. They use aluminum bats," Williams explained.

Still, between 60 and 70 percent of all major league players are under contract with Louisville Slugger.

The birth of the Louisville Slugger

H & B Company, formerly known as J. F. Hillerich & Son, could be a poster- child for the American success story. Its founder, J. F. Hillerich, immigrated from Germany and eventually settled his family in Louisville. He opened a woodworking shop in the 1850s.

As the legend goes, Hillerich’s son, John Andrew "Bud" Hillerich was a talented amateur baseball player and an apprentice in his father’s shop. He skipped work one day to watch the Louisville Eclipse team play. It’s star player, Pete "The Old Gladiator" Browning was in a slump.

After the game, Bud invited Browning back to the woodworking shop to fashion a new bat for him. He chose a piece of white ash and the two worked late into the night.

As the story goes, Browning broke out of his slump the next day and the bat was soon in demand across the league. The bat was first called the Falls City Slugger, but it became known as the Louisville Slugger by 1894.

"In 1894 it (Louisville Slugger) became a registered trademark," Williams explained. "It’s one of the oldest trademarks in the country."

The bat business continued to grow but it caused a rift between father and son, according to Williams. Eventually, the father left the business and opened a more traditional woodworking shop.

By 1905, the company had begun signing contracts with players to burn their names into the bats. The Louisville Slugger name was becoming entrenched.

Frank Bradsby joined the company in the early 1900s to help market Louisville Sluggers and H & B launched its first national marketing campaign in 1919. By 1923, it was producing one million bats a year.

Bud Hillerich died in 1946 and was succeeded as president by his son, Ward, and then later by his son, J.A. Hillerich II. John A. "Jack" Hillerich III is the current president and chief executive officer.

The future of H & B

H & B Company is more diversified than many may realize. Its image is built around its signature wooden bats. But the company has several different divisions.

"Aluminum bats are where the real profits are for our corporation," said Williams.

The company produced its first aluminum bats in the 1970s. Its plant is in California.

H & B later introduced its first Louisville Slugger gloves and mitts. Today, these bats and accessories are among the company’s best sellers.

"Amateur is where the profits are," Williams explained.

The fastest growing area of profits is women’s fast-pitch softball, according to Williams. The company now designs softball equipment especially for women. The popularity of this sport has fueled sales.

"The success is phenomenal," Williams noted. "It was good for us from a business perspective and it was good for girls and women because it offered them a whole new line of equipment."

H & B also has a hockey division with a plant in Wallaceburg, Ontario Canada.

"Hockey has a lot of promise," said Williams. "We do well in ice hockey."

Less promising is the company’s golf division. H & B manufactures its PowerBilt golf clubs in Louisville.

"Golf is questionable," Williams conceded. "The entire industry is having problems."

He calls their golf division "a small part of their universe," and says H & B has not made a decision about its future. H & B began making golf clubs in 1916 and is the oldest continuous golf club manufacturer in Kentucky, according to Williams.

Perhaps less well known is the company’s interest in timber. Its Larimer and Norton Division holds 5,000 acres of timberland in New York and Pennsylvania and operates seven timber mills.

"That’s where we harvest our Northern White Ash," noted Williams.

H & B also sells timber to furniture and flooring companies.

The company’s newest and most visible division is the Louisville Slugger Museum, which opened in July 1996. There visitors can re-live the history of baseball through photographs, original documents and displays of some of the equipment used by baseball greats.

Visitors will see items like the original 1918 contract between Babe Ruth and H & B giving H & B "the exclusive and sole right to the use of my name and photograph on baseball bats."

"That may be the best $100 we ever spent," Williams added.

One of the most popular aspects of the museum is a tour of the plant where Louisville Sluggers are crafted. Visitors will see craftsmen fashioning white oak into bats destined for pro players.

High-speed lathes turn the bats to players’ exact specifications. They are then fire-branded with the trademark Louisville Slugger mark and dipped in one of several finishes.

Williams said the museum draws approximately 37 percent of its visitors from the metropolitan Louisville area, another 35 percent from Kentucky and the remainder from out-of-state.

"It’s a wonderful museum," Williams noted. "You can see pro players’ bats being made right in front of you."

The Louisville Slugger Museum is open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday. For more information, visit the company’s web site at http://www.slugger.com.

Lisa Summers is a staff writer for The Lane Report.