At the plate at the Louisville Slugger Museum & Factory: 6 of the most interesting bats

Have you ever wondered how many bats a Major League Baseball player goes through in a season?

Bailey Mazik, curator and exhibits director at the Louisville Slugger Museum & Factory, guesses it's around 100 — at least, that's how many teams are ordering.

The museum houses bats of some of the greatest players in history, and its largest renovations in nearly 15 years have expanded exhibits to highlight more diversity and showcase the brand's history in a more "cohesive" way, Mazik said. Parts of the museum, like the expanded bat vault and gallery, were "reimagined from top to bottom."

With more than 3,000 bats on display at the Slugger Museum, it's hard to pick a favorite, so here's a quick run-down of some of the most interesting ones.

Babe Ruth's notched bat

Every time Babe Ruth hit a homer, he carved a notch around the Louisville Slugger logo on his bat. Now, it's one of the first things guests see when they walk into the gallery.

Ruth was able to make 21 notches on the bat from the 1927 season before it broke, Mazik said. There's another notched bat from the same season housed at the Baseball Hall of Fame.

"He sent it back to us and said 'make me some more,'" she added.

"The Bambino," as Ruth was called, played primarily for the New York Yankees from 1920 to 1934 as an outfielder, though he spent time with the Boston Red Sox and Boston Braves as well. In more than 8,000 times at bat, he hit 714 home runs and averaged .342 at the plate. He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1936.

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Hank Aaron's record-breaking bat

Ruth set the home run record, but Hank Aaron broke it.

Muhammad Ali called Aaron "the only man I idolize more than myself," according to the Baseball Hall of Fame's biography. The bat he used to break Ruth's home run record is on display next to his life-size statue in the far right corner of the gallery beside some of his hats, and, with it, he hit home run No. 715.

Aaron was a right fielder who played primarily for the Milwaukee Braves from 1954 to 1965. His 755 home runs came in more than 12,000 times at bat, with an average of .305. He was enterd the Hall of Fame in 1982.

Roberto Clemente's unused bat

Roberto Clemente's unused bat is on display behind a case on the inner wall of the museum's bat vault. The knob is stamped C276 after his last name and number in the museum's catalog. He designed it a few weeks before his death, Mazik said, but "was never actually able to use" it.

"It's really special," Mazik said. "It's kind of unique because he really preferred this kind of cone-shaped knob. It doesn't have a very defined knob."

Clemente played primarily for the Pittsburgh Pirates as a right fielder from 1955 to 1972. In 9,454 times at bat, he hit 240 home runs and had a batting average of .317. He was also the first Latino to enter the Baseball Hall of Fame. Appointed in 1973, Clemente was inducted just months after he died along with four others in a plane crash off the coast of his home, Puerto Rico, on his way to Nicaragua to deliver supplies after an earthquake.

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Pete Browning's oldest bat

Pete Browning is the original "Louisville Slugger," Mazik said. He's the brand's namesake, and his 1887 bat sits in a case toward the back of the gallery.

Company legend says 17-year-old Bud Hillerich created it for Browning after he played hooky from his job at his father's wood working shop to watch the Louisville Eclipse play. He saw Browning break his bat and offered up his talents to make a new one, and it's said Browning got three hits in his next game with that bat.

Browning's career was jumpstarted on July 28, 1877 when he helped bring down the National League Louisville Grays by pitching a 4-0 game, striking out outfielder George Hall and pitcher Jimmy Devlin. He played mostly for the Eclipse, a team formed in 1882. From 1882 to 1894, Browning had a .341 batting average, ranking him among baseball's top four right-handed batters.

Jud Wilson's game-used bat

Mizak said Jud Wilson's game-used bat is one of her personal favorites.

The player designed it in 1937, but it was only discovered in the museum's archives a few years ago.

"Jud Wilson's bat is so important because we don't have a lot of objects and artifacts from the Negro Leagues players unfortunately," she said.

Wilson, also known as "Boojum" for the sound of his hits bouncing off outfield walls, was primarily a third baseman for the Philadelphia Stars from 1934 to 1939, though he played for a total of seven different teams. He hit 77 homers in 3,049 plate appearances and had a .352 batting average. He reached the Hall of Fame in 2006.

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Jessica Medoza's game-used bat

The "Women Play Ball" section of the museum was expanded to include one of Jessica Mendoza's game-used bats, Mazik said. The metallic blue bat sits under a Colorado Silver Bullets jersey in the far left corner of the gallery and signals Mendoza's many accomplishments as a softball player: two-time pan American gold medalist, three-time World Cup champion and two-time Olympic gold medalist, among others.

Mendoza is a trailblazer in baseball journalism, too. She's the first woman to work as "an analyst for nationally-televised MLB games," according to her bio on ESPN. She was also the first woman to work as a World Series analyst on national radio, joining the MLB on ESPN Radio for the event in 2020. She holds the title of first woman to appear on TV for the 2015 edition of "Monday Night Baseball" and to serve as a solo analyst for MLB telecasts as well.

Contact reporter Rae Johnson at RNJohnson@gannett.com. Follow them on Twitter at @RaeJ_33.

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: 6 historic baseball bats at Louisville Slugger Museum & Factory