Louisville Slugger Field is a

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding tea ...

stadium in

Louisville, Kentucky Louisville ( , , ) is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the 28th most-populous city in the United States. Louisville is the historical seat and, since 2003, the nominal seat of Jefferson County, on the Indiana border ...

. The baseball-specific stadium opened in 2000 with a seating capacity of 13,131. It is currently home to the professional baseball team, the

Louisville Bats The Louisville Bats are a Minor League Baseball team of the International League (IL) and the Triple-A (baseball), Triple-A affiliate of the Cincinnati Reds. They are located in Louisville, Kentucky, and are named in dual reference to the bat, win ...

, Triple-A affiliate of the

Cincinnati Reds The Cincinnati Reds are an American professional baseball team based in Cincinnati. They compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) National League Central, Central division and were a charter member of ...

. From 2015 to 2019, it was also home to

Louisville City FC Louisville City Football Club is an American professional soccer club based in Louisville, Kentucky. The team plays in the USL Championship, known through the 2018 season as the United Soccer League (USL), which is currently the second tier of th ...

, a professional

soccer Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

team in the

USL Championship The USL Championship (USLC) is a professional men's soccer league in the United States that began its inaugural season in 2011. The USL is sanctioned by the United States Soccer Federation (U.S. Soccer) as a Division II league since 2017, pl ...

. The unique design of Louisville Slugger Field includes a former train shed on the site which was incorporated into the stadium. The

Ohio River The Ohio River is a long river in the United States. It is located at the boundary of the Midwestern and Southern United States, flowing southwesterly from western Pennsylvania to its mouth on the Mississippi River at the southern tip of Illino ...

and state of

Indiana Indiana () is a U.S. state in the Midwestern United States. It is the 38th-largest by area and the 17th-most populous of the 50 States. Its capital and largest city is Indianapolis. Indiana was admitted to the United States as the 19th s ...

are visible from the park, as well as views of

downtown Louisville Downtown Louisville is the largest central business district in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the urban hub of the Louisville, Kentucky Metropolitan Area. Its boundaries are the Ohio River to the north, Hancock Street to the east, York and Jaco ...

. Naming rights for the stadium were purchased by

Hillerich & Bradsby Hillerich & Bradsby Company (H&B) is an American manufacturing company located in Louisville, Kentucky that produces baseball bats for Wilson Sporting Goods, which commercializes them under the "Louisville Slugger" brand. The company also operat ...

, makers of the famous Louisville Slugger

baseball bat A baseball bat is a smooth wooden or metal club used in the sport of baseball to hit the ball after it is thrown by the pitcher. By regulation it may be no more than in diameter at the thickest part and no more than in length. Although histor ...

, and the

Louisville Slugger Museum & Factory The Louisville Slugger Museum & Factory, is a museum and factory tour attraction located in Louisville, Kentucky's "Museum Row", part of the West Main District, Louisville, West Main District of downtown Louisville, downtown. The museum showcases ...

is located several blocks further down Main Street. The stadium is accessible from

I-64 Interstate 64 (I-64) is an east–west Interstate Highway in the Eastern United States. Its western terminus is at I-70, U.S. Route 40 (US 40), and US 61 in Wentzville, Missouri. Its eastern terminus is at an interchange w ...

I-65 Interstate 65 (I-65) is a major north–south Interstate Highway in the central United States. As with most primary Interstates ending in 5, it is a major crosscountry, north–south route, connecting between the Great Lakes and the Gulf ...

, and

I-71 Interstate 71 (I-71) is a north–south Interstate Highway in the Great Lakes/Midwestern and Southeastern region of the United States. Its southern terminus is at an interchange with I-64 and I-65 (the Kennedy Interchange) in Louisville, ...

History

The Louisville Bats and the City of Louisville broke ground on Louisville Slugger Field on November 13, 1998. In front of an estimated crowd of 1,000, Mayor

Jerry Abramson Jerry Edwin Abramson (born September 12, 1946) is an American Democratic politician who was the 55th lieutenant governor of Kentucky. On November 6, 2014, Governor Steve Beshear announced that Abramson would step down from his position as lieute ...

and Governor

Paul E. Patton Paul Edward Patton (born May 26, 1937) is an American politician who served as the 59th governor of Kentucky from 1995 to 2003. Because of a 1992 amendment to the Kentucky Constitution, he was the first governor eligible to run for a second ter ...

cut out the first home plate before they broke the ground with Bats President Gary Ulmer and other officials. The stadium hosted the 2008

Triple-A All-Star Game The Triple-A All-Star Game was an annual baseball game held from 1988 to 2019 between professional players from the affiliated Triple-A leagues of Minor League Baseball. These leagues were the International League (IL) and Pacific Coast League ( ...

, in which the

Pacific Coast League The Pacific Coast League (PCL) is a Minor League Baseball league that operates in the Western United States. Along with the International League, it is one of two leagues playing at the Triple-A (baseball), Triple-A level, which is one grade bel ...

All-Stars defeated the International League All-Stars, 6–5, in front of a sellout crowd. On July 8, 2009,

John Mellencamp John J. Mellencamp (born October 7, 1951), previously known as Johnny Cougar, John Cougar, and John Cougar Mellencamp, is an American singer-songwriter. He is known for his catchy brand of heartland rock, which emphasizes traditional instrument ...

Bob Dylan Bob Dylan (legally Robert Dylan, born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. Often regarded as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture during a career sp ...

, and

Willie Nelson Willie Hugh Nelson (born April 29, 1933) is an American country musician. The critical success of the album ''Shotgun Willie'' (1973), combined with the critical and commercial success of ''Red Headed Stranger'' (1975) and '' Stardust'' (197 ...

held a concert at the ballpark. In March 2015,

became the stadium's second major tenant. The team plays in the

(known before the 2019 season as the United Soccer League), which at the time occupied the third division of U.S. professional soccer but has now been elevated to second-division status. Louisville City left Slugger Field after the 2019 season, as the team is building the new

Lynn Family Stadium Lynn Family Stadium is a soccer-specific stadium in the Butchertown neighborhood of Louisville, Kentucky, in the United States. The field is home to Louisville City FC of the USL Championship (USLC) since its opening in 2020, along with th ...

several blocks to the east in Butchertown and plans to open it in time for the 2020 season. On August 1, 2008 a record crowd of 18,543 people attended a concert by Dave Matthews Band.

Features

The design of Louisville Slugger Field is a joint effort of

HNTB Architects HNTB Corporation is an American infrastructure design firm. Founded in 1914 in Kansas City, Missouri, HNTB began with the partnership made by Ernest Emmanuel Howard with the firm Waddell & Harrington, founded in 1907. Considered as one of the m ...

Kansas City The Kansas City metropolitan area is a bi-state metropolitan area anchored by Kansas City, Missouri. Its 14 counties straddle the border between the U.S. states of Missouri (9 counties) and Kansas (5 counties). With and a population of more ...

, Mo and K. Norman Berry Associates of Louisville. The field was financed through a partnership between the city, the Bats, Hillerich & Bradsby, the Brown Foundation, Humana Inc. and the Humana Foundation. The stadium includes 11,522 fixed seats with room for 1,609 additional spectators in the picnic areas and berm sections. The ballpark also includes 32 private suites, 850 second-level club seats, a continuous concourse around the field, an outfield seating berm, extensive press facilities, concessions and restrooms, a children's play area, team and administrative offices and numerous retail amenities. Spectators enter the stadium through the restored "train shed" building, which was formerly the Brinly-Hardy Co. warehouse. The Main Street side of the building includes exterior access to a microbrewery and restaurant located within the facility, as well as a statue of Louisville native and Baseball Hall of Famer

Pee Wee Reese Harold Peter Henry "Pee Wee" Reese (July 23, 1918 – August 14, 1999) was an Americans, American professional baseball player. He played in Major League Baseball as a shortstop for the Los Angeles Dodgers, Brooklyn / Los Angeles Dodgers from 194 ...

. The Witherspoon Street entrance, diagonally situated from Waterfront Park includes a statue of football Hall of Famer,

Paul Hornung Paul Vernon Hornung (December 23, 1935 – November 13, 2020), nicknamed "the Golden Boy", was an American professional football player who was a Hall of Fame running back for the Green Bay Packers of the National Football League (NFL) from 195 ...

. While the full capacity of the park is 13,131, the capacity for soccer matches was normally restricted to 8,000 due to less-than-optimal sightlines for that sport.

References

External links

Louisville Slugger Field website

History of Louisville Slugger Field
{{Louisville City FC Sports venues in Louisville, Kentucky Baseball venues in Kentucky Soccer venues in Kentucky 2000 establishments in Kentucky Sports venues completed in 2000 International League ballparks USL Championship stadiums

History

Features

See also

References

External links