Brewers vs. Reds in Cincinnati

I'm often faced with the reality that I won't be in any of my own pictures unless I take them myself. This often results in pictures like the one on the left because I wasn't able to find a ledge to set up the camera for the self timer. I bet that you've gotten quite used to pictures like this by now.  

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The first thing that we saw when we entered the building was a Prince Fielder game used Louisville Slugger. I immediately felt welcome in this place. I was instantly impressed with this factory, and I haven't even seen much of it yet. Good to see the Brewers getting respect.

We toured the factory and saw how bats were carved out of pieces of wood, and how they flame treat them and dip them in paint to make them different colors. It was a pretty interesting tour, but it really was no different that any brewery tour that I've been on, except that they made bats instead of beer. The tour took about a half hour, and after we finished we took some time to poke around the museum and displays. One of the coolest things were the multiple bats they had on display, ranging from hall of famers like Hank Aaron and Ty Cobb to current sluggers such as Albert Pujols and Alex Rodriguez. Brodey and i found some statues and decided to interact with them, which didn't sit well wwith the statues at first, but since they were inanimate, they couldn't speak up and protest. We continued walking around the factory museum and checked out some sweet baseball history, but something nearby caught my eye and brought me much joy and laughter.

We decided to visit the Louisville Slugger Bat Factory in Louisville, Kentucky because it was only about 1 1/2 hours south of Cincinnati. We decided to go there first, because if you look at a map, it makes so much more sense to do so. Outside of the factory is a 120 foot giant sized replica of Babe Ruth's bat. I asked the other guys to stand next to it so that I could get a nice comparison shot. I had to go across the street to be able to fit the entire bat into a picture. I know it's a Babe Ruth replica, but this thing looks like it was built for the other mammoth beast - Paul Bunyan.

The Brewers usually release the schedule for the upcoming season in the final month of the current season. It is then that we convene and plan our Brewer road trips for the next summer. I make it a point to go to 3 places every year - St. Louis, Chicago, and Minneapolis. We also try to visit 1 stadium that we have never been to before. This year it would Great American Ballpark in Cincinnati to see the Brewers take on the Reds. The 2nd weekend of September saw us making the drive down for the final two games (Saturday and Sunday) in the weekend series.

Against the back wall, there was a video pitching machine that let you see from the catcher's perspective how fast  a 90 mph fastball really is. At first I questioned why this display was in a bat factory/museum, but I stopped caring when I saw the pitchers that you could chose from. All of the pitchers that you would expect to be on there were present - Roger Clemens, Randy Johnson, Andy Pettitte, Nolan Ryan, Ben Sheets and Gelndon Rusch. Glendon Rusch? Are you serious? You mean the pitcher who went 1-12 with a 6.42 ERA for the Milwaukee Brewers in 2003? Did they run out of good pitchers to put on here? How much did he have to pay someone to get in this display?