Louisville Slugger Field

• Name: Louisville Slugger Field
• GPS-able Address: 401 E. Main St., Louisville, KY 40202
• Ballpark Owner: Metro Louisville-Jefferson County
• Architects: K. Norman Berry; HNTB Sports
• Groundbreaking: 11/13/1998
• Minor League Baseball/Professional Development League Teams: Louisville Bats (AAA) 2002-present; Louisville RiverBats (AAA) 2000-2001
• Pro Baseball Class/League History: AAA/International League 2022-present; AAA/Triple-A East 2021; AAA/International League 2000-2020
• First Pro Baseball Game: 4/12/2000; stadium debut of Class AAA RiverBats
• Others Playing or Operating Here: None
• Previous Ballpark Names: None
• LF: 325 CF: 405 RF: 340
• Seats: 11,522
• Stated Capacity: 13,131
• House Baseball/Softball Record Attendance (as currently configured): 14,658; 4/21/2018

Louisville Slugger Field in Louisville, KY, is the home of the Louisville Bats, the Cincinnati Reds' Triple-A International League farm team. Playing as the Louisville Redbirds in 1983, this franchise became the first Minor League Baseball team ever to draw 1 million fans in a single season.

In 1982, the former Springfield Redbirds moved from Illinois into the University of Louisville's cavernous football stadium and immediately shattered the single-season attendance record for all of Minor League Baseball. Shattered, indeed: The old record, set in 1946 as ballparks re-opened after World War II, was 670,563; the inaugural Redbirds drew 868,418. The next season, they took the next logical step by topping 1 million.

In line with the usual novelty-wears-off curve, attendance never returned to that lofty peak. The football stadium was actually something of a problem, making numbers that would make other teams jealous look sparse. Eventually, the club got the Derby City to build a new, more intimate baseball-specific ballpark. Named for the iconic locally manufactured Louisville Slugger bat in a naming-rights deal with Hillerich & Bradsby, "The Slug" could only draw a million by selling out every game with no rainouts.

The Slug's team changed names twice over those years. Originally a St. Louis Cardinals' affiliate, it switched to the Milwaukee Brewers when St. Louis opted to hook up with the Triple-A expansion franchise Memphis, TN, landed in 1998. That necessitated dropping "Redbirds" necessary, and the club went with RiverBats. In 2002, as the team became a Reds' affiliate and moved into a playpen named for a baseball bat, "Bats" became a more logical moniker.

The Slug hosted a Major League exhibition game that does not hold its one-date gate record: The Reds and Baltimore Orioles drew 13,131 to a 2002 spring-training game, but the Bats themselves topped that with an April 21, 2018, crowd of 14,658 for a game that was played on the same day as the annual "Thunder Over Louisville" fireworks event.

In 2022, the same season so-called "robo-umpires" made it to Triple-A, The Slug's ground crew became the in first professional baseball to use a "robo-mower".

Louisville is one of two original National League cities without big-league baseball today; the other is Hartford, CT. There was a near miss at getting back into MLB: Four seasons before Charlie Finley moved the Kansas City Athletics to Oakland, CA, in 1968, American League owners voted 9-1 against his moving them to Louisville.

Given its current success and that history, the city's spotty professional baseball track record is perhaps surprising. After the NL's Louisville Colonels folded following the 1899 season, the Derby City went entirely without affiliated baseball in 1900, 1902-1967, and 1973-1981.

Related Sites

• Louisville Slugger Field (Louisville, KY) at the SABR Bio Project
• Louisville Bats: Louisville Slugger Field