Louisville Slugger Museum
Louisville, KY
June 15, 2003
Great American Ball Park
Cincinnati, OH
Chicago Cubs at
Cincinnati Reds
June 15, 2003
By
Ken Schlapp
OK, now I can actually
write about an odyssey that actually consists of going somewhere.
Yankee Stadium was just a subway ride and San Juan was two months
earlier. So here goes; I left my home in Queens, New York early
Sunday morning (June 15th) for Staten Island, New York to pick up my
friend Paul Wojtak, who will be with me for the first 8 days, to
drive to Louisville, Kentucky. We didn't have any events or sites
to see today, just an 865 mile drive that took us about 14 hours.
We tried to keep sane during the drive by thinking of the miles as
HRs as we passed Mays (660), Ruth (714), and Aaron (755) to move up
the all-time Major League HR list. It should be noted that we fell
3 short of Sadaharu Oh's all-time professional record of 868.
Our first sto p (June 16th) was to visit the Louisville Slugger
Museum, which can be found pretty easily in downtown Louisville by
looking up for the huge replica Babe Ruth bat that stands about 40
feet high and is in front of the museum. OK, we did miss it on the
first pass, but when we backtracked we had to laugh at how obvious
it was to find the museum. The museum is located on 800 West Main
Street and is open from 9 AM to 5 PM Monday through Saturday, and
from 12 Noon to 5 PM on Sundays. A $6 entrance fee gets you a tour
of the factory where the bats are made, a movie about the history of
the Louisville Slugger Bat Company and the players that use their
bats, access to the exhibits, and most importantly a souvenir
mini-bat. You can even have your own personalized bat made either
with or without your actual signature while you are taking the tour
(it takes about 45 minutes for the bat to be personalized). So of
coarse I had a "Ken 'Trolley Car' Schlapp" bat made for myself
without my own signature, because if I used my actual signature, no
one would be able to read it! Note that "Trolley Car" is the
nickname given to me by my fellow New York Gotham Vintage Baseball
teammates.
The tour basically demonstrates how the bats are made from the tree
all the way to the finish and use. One of the more amazing aspects
of the factory tour was the lathing machine that cuts the block of
wood to bat dimensions in 30 seconds. I also liked the replica
"Camden Yards" inside the museum that includes a press box where you
can listen to excerpts from some of the more famous announcers such
as Ernie Harwell. You can also see walls inside the entrance to the
museum where all the Major League Players have a plaque based on the
years (decade by decade) that they started playing and using
Louisville Slugger bats. Overall, it was completely worth the trip
to Louisville.
From Louisville, we took the two-hour drive to Cincinnati to
experience our first taste of special treatment on my cross-country
baseball journey. We got to the Great American Ballpark about 5
hours before game time to have a personalized tour of this
first-year stadium from Dann of the Reds Communications department.
He took us on a walk through the entire stadium pointing out all the
special features and mentioning some of the reasons why things were
done a certain way.
One of the things that stood out right away is that the Reds managed
to honor Pete Rose without actually doing so in a way that would
violate the regulations regarding his banishment from baseball.
There are two murals of past Reds teams in th stadium. The first
is to honor the original 1869 team that was the first all
professional baseball team in history. The second was to
memorialize the Big Red Machine of the 1970s, and in that picture
Pete Rose is included, but his portrait does not include his number
14 to officially state that it was Pete, while all other players
numbers are present. In addition, there is a Fox Sports Net Club
4192 where club seat ticket holders can enjoy a lounge and bar. It
should be noted that only the "4192" stands out on the outside of
the club to signify Pete Rose's passing of Ty Cobb's all-time hits
record. The street outside the stadium parking lot is on Pete Rose
Way and is the only direct Pete Rose honorarium and that is because
major league baseball has no control over the city of Cincinnati as
far as what they want to name their streets. For my own protection,
I will leave my thought about Pete Rose out of this article.It was a last minute decision to have the seats all red
instead of all green like most of the other new ballparks.
I thought this was a good idea to associate Red with
everything about the team. It is clear that they did a good
job of that from the internal offices to the clubs
in the stadiums, the
color Red stands out, and it should! Some other things to look for
as you walk around the stadium is the giant newspaper clipping of
the Reds 1919 championship celebration (you can ignore the Black Sox
scandal and enjoy from the Reds point of view) along the food
concourse. Be sure to notice when you walk into the ballpark
through Crosley Terrace that there is a statue of one of the Reds
old heroes, Ted Kluzuski (sleeveless of coarse) in the front. Dann
indicated that they will be adding additional statues of other Reds
heroes such as Joe Nuxhall to the entrance area. The stadium is
also filled with all kinds of food and specialty restaurants
throughout such as Redlegs Landing in the View level and the Machine
Room Grille which is open year-round. The Reds are also in the
process of building a Hall of Fame for their past players on the
lower level of the stadium adjacent to Crosley Terrace.
Right now, just past where the Hall of Fame will be is the lot where
Riverfront Stadium (the home of the Reds since 1970) was recently
demolished.
 This is an area that appears to be under heavy
construction as Cincinnati is in the process of building up this
riverfront area. I had planned to go visit the old site of Crosley
Field (Findlay Street and Western Avenue where the Reds played prior
to Riverfront) where there is an historic marker identifying the
former site of Home Plate, but we ran out of time before the game.
We did, however, have time to go have some Skyline Chili, which is a
must when you are in Cincinnati. I had the 4-way chili, which is
served over spaghetti with onions and cheese in a meat sauce that is
made with cinnamon (I know this sounds strange, but it was really
good!). We also had time to walk over the "Blue Bridge" which will
take to over the Ohio River to Kentucky and give you great views of
both Great American Ballpark and Brown Stadium (where the Bengals
play). What made this interesting for me is that I am a New York
History buff and this was the Bridge that Roebling designed prior to
the Brooklyn Bridge and was the reason that he was commissioned to
build the larger bridge connecting Manhattan and Brooklyn. The only
bad note is that the Ohio River was so brown that day that it was
not too appealing.
Dann also took us to see some areas the ordinary fan would not get
to see. We took a walk through Scout's Alley, which is only
accessible to those with club seating and to scouts. What is
special about this is that this is basically a Reds scout hall of
fame honoring those that have found the Reds players. There is even
the contract signed by Paul O'Neil from when he first signed with
the Reds. We also got to go to the pressroom, which is laid out
pretty nicely with a great view of the game and easy access for the
writers to plug in their laptops. It should be noted that the Reds
do offer tours of the stadium in which fans can get to see these
things as well.
On to the game, which represented the first time that I saw the home
team lose. Therefore, my theory that the home team was winning only
because of me was disproved. The Reds got on the board early with
a two-run s ingle by Aaron Boone in the 1st inning, but the Cubs tied
it up with an RBI single by Miller in the 2nd and an RBI groundout
by Patterson in the 3rd. The Reds got a run back, with an Austin
Kearns RBI single in the 5th only to see the lead go up in smoke
with back-to-back jacks from Moises Alou and Eric Karros in the Cubs
6th inning to round out the scoring. Clement pitched 6 innings for
the win, while Anderson took the loss giving up all four Cubs runs.
The fans seemed into the game and were rooting for their Reds, but I
can't say that anything stood out either negatively or positively
about the crowd. The only real significant contribution was that in
mock of the Cubs fan's tradition of throwing back the visiting
team's home runs, the Reds fan that caught Alou's Home Run threw it
back onto the field.
One of the things I try to pay attention to at each game is what
happens when the home team hits a home run, but unfortunately I did
not get to see that happen today. However, Dann let us know that in
centerfield there are "Homer Stacks" that shoot fireworks when the
Reds hit a home run. The stacks also spew smoke when the other team
strikes out, which I was able to witness. The Reds electronic
scoreboard race during the game consisted of a speed board race in
which Redleg beat out Mr. Red and Rose Red. During the 7th inning
stretch they play the traditional "Take Me Out to the Ball Game",
but change the "Home Team" to "Reds". This was also the first game
where I got to witness "Kiss Cam" where the cameraman focuses on two
people on the giant Jumbotron to entice a kiss. The big highlight
for me was that during the 6th inning there was a big note on the
Jumbotron wishing me well on the 3rd stop of my baseball journey!
Basic trip facts:
* Miles traveled - 1,019 via Car (Totals: Driving - 1,019, Subway -
20, Air - 3,196, Total - 3,216)
* States, provinces and/or commonwealths passed through - New York,
New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia, Virginia,
Kentucky, and Ohio (Totals: States - 8, Provinces - 0,
Commonwealths - 1)
* Seats - Loge Section 116, Row W, Seat 1 & 2 - Field level between
home and third.
* Prices: Parking - $12, Beer - $5.75, Program (including pencil) -
$5.00, Souvenir Soda Cup - $4.00
* Credit Card giveaway - 1869 Reds T-shirt
* First Pitch - 7:10 PM
* Attendance - 28,669
* Results - Cubs 4, Reds 3, W: Clement, L: Anderson, S: Borowski
* Home team record to date - 4 wins, 1 loss
* Record of "team I was routing for" to date - 0 wins, 5 losses
* Lodging - Louisville, Kentucky on the 15th and Florence, Kentucky
on the 16th
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