Staking Our Reputation on Home Run Halloween
By Anne Jewell
VP, Executive Director, Candy Corn Queen
Lucy English
Marketing Manager, Vampire Defense Team First Lieutenant
Vampires beware. We don’t make your kind of bats at Louisville Slugger Museum & Factory. But we do have a big surprise for any bloodsuckers who swoop by!
Our ghoulish goonies helped us unveil The World’s Largest Vampire Stake on October 19.
The weapon towers at 8 feet, 8 inches, and was hand-hewn right here in the bat factory by Hillerich & Bradsby Co.’s Jonathan Rose. You can see him at work below, using a chain saw to carve the stake from a 12-inch diameter ash log. He also used an electric hand planer and a blow torch for the finishing touches. The log came from the very same Pennsylvania forest that produces our baseball bat timber.
Our Vampire Defense Team determined that the same properties that make our ash trees great for baseball bats also make them the perfect choice for vampire stakes. Because of its grain structure, ash wood is flexible and less likely to break, just what you need whether a baseball or a vampire is coming your way. We just hope we never have to use it. There will be a lot at stake if we do.
Home Run Halloween
The stake unveiling kicked-off our first ever Home Run Halloween celebration. We love this time of year, when playoffs are in full swing and pumpkins are perfectly placed. Go batty at Louisville Slugger Museum & Factory with some of our more devilish displays:
Horror Punk High Fashion
Calling all Misfits Fiends!
We’ve got Jerry Only’s spiked leather vest and custom bass guitar from the Original MISFITS Riot Fest reunion concerts in Denver and Chicago. This isn’t your ordinary instrument; this Devastator’s neck is made from our own Louisville Slugger bat wood. You’ve got until November 9 to see these two amazing stage-used pieces of rock history.
Lucille
When The Walking Dead needed commemorative Lucille bats for the cast and crew of AMC’s smash show, they turned to the team that makes Louisville Slugger bats. Our factory folks engraved barbed wire onto the bat barrels, and this homage to Negan’s prickly little lady was born. But Lucille isn't our only bat with ties to the zombie apocalypse...
We also have a bat signed by Michael Rooker. You might know him better as Daryl's older brother, Merle Dixon, from TWD seasons 1 - 3. Both bats, seen above, will be on display until November 9th.
Throw the Book at ‘Em
One of the featured pieces in our Ripley’s Believe It or Not!® Oddball™ exhibit is this bona fide vampire killing kit, designed to look like a book.
Legends of vampires go back several hundred years. In the 19th century novels and stories about vampires living in Transylvania were so wide-spread that people actually purchased vampire killing kits like this set, which contains everything you need to vanquish a vampire —a crucifix, garlic, a silver dagger, a hammer and a stake. See it now through January 7 in the extraordinary Oddball exhibition.
Happy Halloween from the home of The World’s Biggest Baseball Bat . . . and the World’s Largest Vampire Stake!