Spotlight- Louisville Slugger Maker Welcomes Foresters
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Although the name says Louisville Slugger, the famous baseball bat’s roots are in Pennsylvania. Several DCNR employees recently popped in on a mill in Akeley, Warren County, where the ubiquitous Louisville Slugger is born.

            DCNR Deputy Secretary for Parks and Forestry Ellen Ferretti, State Forester Dan Devlin, Assistant State Forester Brad Elison, Cornplanter District Forester Cecile Stetler and Assistant District Forester Scott Rimpa joined staff from the mill on a cold fall day to learn how local forest products in Pennsylvania are sustaining an American pastime.
            Louisville Slugger provides more than 60 percent of the bats used by Major League Baseball.
            General Manager of the mill Brian Boltz was joined by employees Pete Eckman, Ethan Smith and Ben Fluent to give the DCNR staff an insider’s look at how the bats are shaped into billets—40-inch cylinder-shaped pieces of wood—at the mill after being harvested from the 8,500 acres of private land managed Larimer & Norton, a division of Louisville Slugger's parent company.
            The 18 employees work at the Akeley mill to process ash and some maple, the two species preferred by baseball players. The billets are then shipped to Louisville to form the perfect home run weapon.

(Reprinted from the November 23 issue of DCNR's Resource online newsletter.)

11/28/2011

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