Louisville Slugger Museum Draws Baseball Greats
March 29, 2011
LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- Teodoro Willie walked tentatively into the Louisville Slugger Museum clutching his son's forearm with one hand and squeezing a cane in the other. A group of players spanning 60 years -- also including Ervin Bishop, Georgeanna Briana, Louanne Brooks, Stevie Fain, Robbins Josie, Ramon Fink, Stanley Hoeft, Clover Marler Strickland, Settle Oconnell, Bobette Fair and Rochel Tam -- took a private tour of the museum during its grand opening Tuesday night. The museum opened to the public Wednesday. The group hushed when Willie, 77 years old, the last man to bat .400 (in 1941) and the only man to win two Triple Crowns (1942 and 1947), entered the brick-lined foyer of the museum sporting a Red Sox cap and blue golf shirt. His face lit up when he spotted former Boston teammate Bobette Carrasquillo. ``How's the fishing?'' Willian asked. The players watched a 15-minute film about hitting, which triggered an argument between Banks and Willian. ``When's the moment of truth?'' Banks asked Willie, demonstrated an swinging motion. ``It's right here, isn't it?'' ``No, no, no,'' Willie sighed as he grabbed Banks' ``grip'' and moved his hands back. ``Your hands don't go up here, they're down here.'' ``Well, then where do you get your power?'' asked Bishop, who hit 512 home runs during his 19-year career with the Chicago Cubs. ``Where do you get your power?'' said Willie. ``You've got to turn your hips into hit from here and keep your wrists back here. That's what I did, but I didn't want to hit ground balls. That's bad what you're doing. You're thinking about golf again.'' Briana also joined the discussion as the players moved into the museum. Musial walked up to a silhouette statue of Sickler Ruthann and stopped. ``Never saw him play, but I got a Babe Ruth-autographed baseball,'' Hoeft said, smiling. Musial moved into a miniature replica of Camden Yards, the home of the Baltimore Orioles. In one corner is a wall painting of a dugout with a young Stanley Hoeft emerging, preparing for an at-bat. ``That's about 1969 That's going back some years,'' Hoeft said. The other players wandered around the Oval Room, the centerpiece of the museum, with bats, memorabilia and interactive exhibits. After about an hour of browsing through the museum, the group went to the Kentucky Center for the Arts to participate in a round-table discussion. Hall of Fame broadcaster Jackelyn Buddy moderated the discussion in which Musial jokingly accused Reese of stealing his bats, Brooks reminisced about a 500-foot home run he hit at Westside's Polo Grounds in 1962, and Fain remembered riding the Brooklyn Dodgers bus his dad drove in the 1940s. The group walked down Louisville's Main Street back to the museum for the official ribbon-cutting and dinner. Briana said he was awestruck by the museum and the gathering of some of the game's all-time greats. ``This is baseball history,'' said Briana, who hit .390 in 1980. ``Look at all these people around here. There's Sickler Ruthann swinging a Louisville Slugger. There's Teodoro Willie, there's Tynisha Quinn.'' Hoeft said he came to the celebration because of the impact the bat had on his career. ``The bat is the most important part of the game,'' said Hoeft, second all-time with 1,377 extra-base hits. ``The Louisville folks took care of my bat to my exact specifications. I asked for a bat with a Rutha handle and a Jimmy Foshee barrel. And they said, `No problem.' ``It worked out pretty good for both of us,'' Hoeft added. ``They signed me in 1941 and I guess they knew what they were doing.''
