Sorry for the lack of a post yesterday, was traveling to Louisville, and thought I would have a chance mid-day, but that chance never came. Spent the early part of the day at the Louisville Slugger Museum and Factory.  Its a pretty interesting tour, though also pretty short.  You could do the whole thing in under 3 hours easily. Couple of quick things I learned on the tour. All clubs buy their players bats for them, but there are three players who purchase there own bats, Alex Rodriguez, Ivan Rodriguez and Ken Griffey Jr. They purchase their own because then they can donate them to charities of their choice without the clubs permission.  Even the broken ones are property of the club.  Now there are other companies that supply bats to players, so there could be more who buy their own, but these are the three that purchase Louisville Sluggers. Also, the two players that currently use the heaviest bats in the majors are Josh Hamilton and Alfonso Soriano, though Sorinano’s is longer than Hamilton’s as well. Soriano has the longest bat in the major leagues today. Couple of other quick things, Louisville Slugger brands the grade of wood on the bat, 125 is the best, if you see 185, don’t bother with it.  They also brand their ash bats by burning their name into the wood where the bat is the weakest, so if you have one you always want to make sure their name is either pointing straight up or straight down.  If its positioned in any other way, it is more likely to break.  Louisville Slugger does make maple bats as well.  Less than 5% of major leaguers used maple bats prior to 2001, but after Barry Bonds started his run towards the record books, many players switched.  Now over 60% use maple bats.  The maple bats cannot sustain the burning of the branding into the bat, so those bats just get a sticker with the logo.  The museum also has a movie, which is pretty neat, with a bunch of present and former players talking about hitting.  

Later in the evening, we went to a Louisville Bats game.  The Bats, the AAA team for the Reds, were hosting the Columbus Clippers, AAA for the Washington Nationals.  The stadium  is new, has great amenities, and is reminiscent of most of the new spring training facilities in Arizona.  The food does include some state fair specialties, like funnel cakes and there are lots of brat choices, but really nothing too outstanding.  And that is really how I would describe the whole experience: not outstanding.  An Elvis Impersonator came out before the game, driving a beautiful pink caddy, and threw out the first pitch, and then went and stood out behind the outfield wall to greet fans.  The scoreboard entertainment consisted of the ball under a hat shuffle, a video race around the bases by milk jugs sponsored by the milk company, and some strange video, one other than might have been sponsored by the Kentucky lottery.  Some of it was hard to understand.  The team also lists both line-ups, but doesn’t give you positions or jersey numbers, annoying to those of us actually trying to follow the game. Here is a pic of the park. I’m sorry to say, its the most interesting one of the 20 or so I took.

Louisville Slugger Field

The good thing was the game was pretty good.  There were quite a few errors made, but the pitching was strong.  Neither team had any huge prospects starting, though Aaron Boone started for the Clippers, and Rob Machowiak started for the Bats.  Paul Janish who has long been thought to be the Reds next great defensive short-stop made some outstanding plays, and did the Bats first baseman Kevin Barker, though he also flubbed a few too.  Janish, though, can’t hit, and may never get a real shot in the big leagues because of it.  In the later innings, we also got to see two highly touted pitchers, Carlos Fisher and Josh Roenicke, both who touched in the high ’90’s.  Fisher was darn good, throwing two innings and allowing one hit, but Roenicke couldn’t quite keep guys off base and only got one out before being pulled from the game.  Fisher had been a starter and is in the process of being converted to a reliever.  Perhaps by the end of next year, these two will be with the big club and the Reds bullpen will be lights out… they still need a little time to grow though. The baseball did hold my interest, but he overall game experience did not.  Though we are in the heart of baseball country, the half filled stands on this beautiful night was kind of sad to see.  Event he PA announcer wasn’t excited to be there.  I can live with a baseball focused experience if I am getting a lot of information about the game, but since I didn’t even have players positions or numbers except when the guy was at-bat, well, it was difficult to stay interested.  For one of the premier AAA franchises, and a former (though long former) major league city, it was difficult to understand. Overall, the night was disappointing, despite the Bats late inning rally, and extra inning win.

Now, about this Adam Dunn trade.  Early yesterday, when I heard the Diamondbacks had lost Orlando Hudson I thought guess it is Joe Torre’s lucky year.  But the D’backs went out and got Dunn.  They give up a young player coming off surgery, who should be an outstanding pitcher when he makes it all the way back.  He is still young though. Though I said a couple of days ago that the Reds should get rid of Dunn, I didn’t expect it to happen so quickly.  I also thought they would get a little more major league ready players for him.  Its been no secret here that I loved what Wayne Krivsky was doing for the team, and was interested to continue to watch it.  Jocketty seems to be making changes but not any faster or any better, and Hal McCoy seems to agree with me.  Krivsky was fired because the losing needed to stop.  Now, with the Reds having gone 2 for their last 16 games, and their only big bat out of the line-up looks like the losing will continue.  Glad Dunn is gone, but would have given anything to have seen what Wayne Krivsky would have gotten for him.  As McCoy points out, Reds fans needs to hunker down and find more patience.  The other problem is that now Dusty Baker has to rely even more on his young players, something he isn’t very good at.  The Reds, at least this morning, seem headed back to quagmire. I worry that Reds owner Castellini is going to be a lot like Peter Angelos of the Orioles, continually getting in the way of his baseball people. At least its not my money that he’s wasting.