Pee Wee Reese, a Louisville native, was the Brooklyn Dodgers shortstop during the Jackie <div>Robinson era. His statue, also created by the sculptor who created the statue of Paul Hornung, Raymond Graf. It portrays Reese throwing the ball to first base with legs up to avoid a sliding baserunner. This statue, like that of Hornung, is located at Louisville Slugger Field.</div><div> </div>Reese is a major part of the Dodgers' effort to integrate baseball in the late 1940s, as he became friends with Robinson. Robinson was subjected to abuse in National League ballparks and from his own teammates. As the story goes, Reese walked over from his shortstop position to embrace Robinson, a move that helped welcome Robinson and other African-American players into baseball. He helped the Dodgers win the World Series in 1955. <div> </div><div>Reese is a member of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and played his early baseball with</div>the Louisville Colonels. In 1939, the Boston Red Sox were looking to find a shortstop who would replace Joe Cronin. And they wanted Reese. Instead of dealing with Reese directly in contract negotiations, the Red Sox wound up buying the whole team! Cronin, not willing to <div>give up his shortstop job yet, gave a less than glowing report on Reese. After that, he was sold to the Dodgers.</div><div> </div><div>After a stint on NBC-TV's baseball coverage along with former baseball great Dizzy Dean, Reese served as an executive for the company that makes the Louisville Slugger baseball bats, Hillerich and Bradsby</div>

Pee Wee Reese - Louisville Colonels. Photo: Louisville Bats - current Louisville baseball team.

Pee Wee Reese and Jackie Robinson. Photo: National Baseball Hall Of Fame.

Pee Wee Reese Biography - National Baseball Hall of Fame.

Website

A scene from "42" - Robinson and Reese embracing. Warner Brothers Home Entertainment.

Video

Dedicated in 2000, this statue of Pee Wee Reese honors one of the most successful baseball players from Louisville. Reese began his professional career with the Louisville Colonels in 1938 and became the captain of the Brooklyn Dodgers in the 1940s. Reese led his team to seven National League pennants and is best-known today for his role in supporting and befriending Jackie Robinson during his first season with the Brooklyn Dodgers. The statue of the famous Louisville sporting legend was created by local sculptor Raymond Graf and located at the main entrance to Slugger Field in Louisville. 

Pee Wee Reese Statue

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This tour of Louisville includes museums, monuments, and historic venues related to the history of sport. The tour begins at the Louisville Slugger Museum and Factory and concludes at Churchill Downs. Additional entries will be added in the near future. 

J. Frederick Hillerich immigrated from Baden-Baden, Germany in 1842. By 1864, J.F. Hillerich's woodworking shop in Louisville, KY was in business.Two years later, a future important member of the business was born: John Andrew "Bud" Hillerich.J.F. Hillerich's business was successful, and by 1875, he was able to employ around 20 people in the workshop. In 1880, 14-year-old Bud Hillerich became an apprentice in his father's shop. With his own love of baseball, Bud began making his own bats along with bats for several of his teammates, with whom he played in an amateur team.Though history is unclear how exactly Bud's reputation for bats grew beyond his teammates and certainly how the first professional athlete first came to him, but legend has an interesting story, anyhow.The legend says Bud crafted first pro bat for Pete Browning in 1884. A seventeen-year-old Bud, watching his favorite game, witnessed Browning break one of his bats, during a slump of misses the player was suffering from. After the game, Bud offered to make the professional player one of his own bats, and Browning agreed. According to the story, using the new bat, Browning broke immediately out of his slump, getting three hits in the very next game. Word spread around about Bud's bat-making abilities. Soon Pete Browning was labelled the "Louisville Slugger," and it was only a matter of time before Hillerich trademarked the title and used it for his bats.Though Bud's father J.F. Hillerich was initially not so interested in baseball bats, slowly the father lost to the son, as the business soared under Bud's leadership.&nbsp;In 1911, the father and son business took on a new partner, Frank Bradsby, who had been a successful salesman for one of Hillerich's largest buyers. When Bradsby became a full partner in 1916, the company name changed to Hillerich &amp; Bradsby Co.&nbsp;In 1919 the company launched its first national campaign, which was apparently successful. Four years later, they were make one million bats per year.Today the Louisville Slugger Museum is housed alongside the company headquarters, which cannot be missed. The World's Largest Baseball Bat seemingly leans against the building (in actuality, the bat is free-standing), displaying for the world its very American industry.&nbsp;The museum includes both hands-on exhibits and old memorabilia, such an 1880s Pete Browning bat.

Nothing feels more American than baseball, and The Louisville Slugger Museum & Factory explores this piece of America through exploring the famous Louisville Slugger baseball bats still created by Hillerich & Bradsby. The museum showcases the story of Louisville Sluggers, from the original Hillerich woodworking business in 1864 to the famous baseball players that later used the bats produced by the business. Any baseball lover will enjoy this museum.

Louisville Slugger Museum & Factory	

<div>The Paul Hornung Statue commemorates one of Louisville's
most famous athletes, Paul Hornung. It was unveiled in 2006, to honor Hornung's
pro and college football accomplishments and his continued credit he brought to
Louisville. Local sculptor Raymond Graf designed the sculpture using a trading
card from Hornung's early Green Bay Packers career. Graf also has statues of
Pee Wee Reese, J. Graham Brown and Al Schneider, located in downtown
Louisville. </div><div> </div><div>Hornung won the&nbsp;1956 Heisman Trophy for his performance at Notre Dame and remains the only Heisman Trophy winner from a team with a&nbsp;losing record. After college, he&nbsp;was a fullback and running back for the&nbsp;Green Bay Packers and helped lead the team to multiple championships. Nicknamed the "Golden Boy," Hornung ran, threw the ball,
kicked field goals and extra points. Hornung was enshrined by&nbsp;both the College
and Pro Football Halls of Fame, but he began both his collegiate and pro careers on teams that fell short of expectations.&nbsp;Hornung began his career as a member of another losing teams in Green Bay until the team hired Vince Lombardi. The future Hall of Fame coach&nbsp;found success when he made Hornung
his left halfback in tandem with Packers legend Jim Taylor in the offensive
backfield. During Hornung's career Lombardi and the Packers won the NFL
Title (before the Super Bowl era) in 1961, 1962, 1965, and 1966. They won the
first Super Bowl in 1966 but Hornung did not play because of an injury. The team also made an NFL Title game appearance in 1960, losing to the Philadelphia
Eagles. Hornung led the way in scoring, amassing an astounding 176 points in a
12-game schedule, then a record.&nbsp;</div>

Dedicated in 2006, this statue honors Paul Hornung, a Heisman Trophy winner and pro football star in the late 1950s and 1960s. Hornung began his football career as a high school student in Louisville under coach Paulie Miller and won the Heisman for his performance in the offensive backfield at Norte Dame. the fullback and running back was a leading player on Vince Lombardi's Green Bay Packers championship teams in the 1960s. He is best-known today as a highly versatile player and colorful performer who went by the nickname "Golden Boy."

Paul Hornung Statue

<h3>History of the Louisville Gardens</h3>
In 1893, state legislators ordered that all first and second class cities in Kentucky provide an armory, and that same year, the city began planning the eventual building. Twelve years later in 1905, at a cost of $440,000 (equivalent to about $12 million today), Louisville architect Brinton B. Davis and firm Caldwell &amp; Drake finished the Jefferson County Armory on December 31st. Nearly 10,000 people showed up to the dedication ceremony.&nbsp;In the following years, as Louisville didn’t have a centralized community center at this time, the Jefferson County Armory began hosting community events and giving locals an opportunity to take part in recreational activities as well as speaking events. For example, in 1911, President William Taft visited the armory to give a speech outlying his policies for international peace. A year later, over 10,000 people came to the armory during a dedication after the Titanic disaster. During the Ohio River flood in 1937, the Armory served as a refugee center for people looking for dry accommodations.&nbsp;
By 1937, however, the University of Kentucky and Notre Dame basketball teams played at the Armory, the first of many such games. Basketball games thereafter became a popular and common activity at the Armory, and when Leo A. Seltzer leased the building in 1945 with a 15 year lease as the Kentucky National Guard moved out (ending the military function of the building), the space boosted its entertainment appeal. The Polack Bros. Circus would eventually set attendance records in Louisville.&nbsp;
On September 30, 1948, President Truman gave a speech from the Armory during the 1948 Presidential elections. Elvis, Scotty, Bill, and DJ would make their second appearances in Louisville at the Armory (the first being at the Rialto Theater) on November 25th, 1956. Prior to the show, with fears of riots over Elvis’s superstar status, Louisville Police Chief Colonel Carl E. Heustis enforced a “no wiggle ban” for the concert. As Don Freeman from the Courier-Journal wrote about the concert:“Teenagers deliriously squealed, the flash bulbs of shutterbugs shot off all over-the whole armory suddenly felt like the inside of a heavily pounded drum.
Elvis Presley had sprung forth in all his glory, plus a green dinner-type coat and Black slacks.
Elvis-the ideal of every red-blooded American girl.
He wheeled squeals out of his fans with 23 minutes of high emotion singing, then disappeared under heavy escort.
Unable to corner him, fans did the next best things.
A bevy of girls shriekingly touched the microphone he had used and some other girls kissed the palms of their hands after rubbing them over the stage dirt he hard trod, police said.”
Martin Luther King Jr. would also addressed residents of the city in this venue on August 23, 1960.
By 1963, large-scale renovation took place and the building was thereafter named the Louisville Convention Center. Under the new name, the building took on a much different role, hosting smaller meetings, music acts, and so forth. The convention center changed its name to the Louisville Gardens in 1975. By 1980, the National Park Service listed the building on the National Register of Historic Places, and in 1998, the name was changed once again to the Gardens of Louisville.&nbsp;
At the moment, the city is in talks about the future of the building.

Originally known the Jefferson County Armory when it was built in 1905, the Louisville Gardens building now stands as a multi-purpose arena for a variety of events. First opening in 1905 as an actual armory complete with drill halls and ammunition for the local branch of the state militia, the historic building has witnessed more 20th-century Louisville history than most other buildings. Because the armory included a swimming pool, rifle range, and other recreation infrastructure, the Louisville community used the building as a gathering place right from the beginning. After 1945, the building became home to the University of Louisville basketball and later, at various points, both the Kentucky Colonels and the Kentucky Wildcats. 

In 1963, the building was converted into the Louisville Convention Center where many famous individuals would eventually host events in Louisville. However, when the Kentucky International Convention Center was built in 1975, the building was renamed yet again to what it is today, the Louisville Gardens. Currently owned by Metro Louisville, it was used to house victims of Hurricane Katrina in 2004, and it currently is in use as a warehouse. Its future remains uncertain as developers make bids on the building.

Louisville Gardens

Parkway Field was home to many different baseball leagues and teams, but the field was originally designed in 1923 for the Louisville Colonels of organized baseball's minor leagues. After their original ballpark, Eclipse Park, was destroyed by a fire on November 20, 1922, club president William F. Knebelkamp quickly began planning for the new field. Parkway Field was built to include a concrete and steel grandstand designed by Leslie Abbot to attract local baseball fans. Due to a delay in construction, the Colonels' were forced to cancel their exhibition schedule for the 1923 season. However, the team won their first game in the new ballpark 5 to 1 on May 1, 1923, against the Toledo Mud Hens. Parkway Field is also remembered as home to Earle Combs' final minor league game as a Louisville Colonel before he went on to become a New York Yankee. As a center fielder, Combs was a great ballplayer for the Colonels by quickly running down fly balls and hitting .344 on average. Combs batted .380 for the Louisville Colonels in 1923, leading the Yankees to acquire his contract the following year. Combs was later inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1970. Although Parkway Field no longer exists, some of the remains have been put to good use as a result of a beautification project. Headed by Jane Ramsey, wife of University of Louisville President James Ramsey, the old green bricks from the original Parkway Field wall were sold to support the program and enhance the areas surrounding Cardinal Park, the new Jim Patterson Baseball Stadium, Papa John's Cardinal Stadium, the neighborhoods adjoining Belknap Campus and the University of Louisville campus. At the Jim Patterson Baseball Stadium, the first eight feet of the roof supports of an adjacent building from the stadium are constructed with the green bricks from the left wall at the historic Parkway Field. The infield dirt was also taken from Parkway field and placed in the batter's box at the Jim Patterson Baseball Stadium as a tribute to the former ballpark.

Parkway Field was a minor league baseball field and later college baseball park in Louisville, Kentucky. Built in 1923, the field was home to the Louisville Colonels of the American Association until 1956. The park also served the Louisville White Sox of the Negro National League, the Louisville Black Caps of the Negro Southern League, and the Louisville Buckeyes of the Negro American League. Rich with history and sport, Parkway Field could hold 13,000 baseball fans. After most of the Negro Baseball Leagues disbanded,the grandstand was demolished in 1961, but the University of Louisville used the original field until 1998. Today, the new field is used for intramural football and soccer at the University of Louisville. 

Parkway Field

A.D. Ruff's last historic cycling trip was to Yellowstone National Park in 1893, just three years before his death. A.D. Ruff passed away on January 11, 1896. His obituary was brief and featured the headline: “Pap” Ruff Dead. One of the Oldest Cyclists in the World. Left a Fortune, With No Heirs."&nbsp; The&nbsp;Kentucky Division of League of American Wheelmen built the Ruff Memorial Wheelmen's Bench in&nbsp;honor of the pioneer cyclist.&nbsp; The work was completed in 1897. However, according to&nbsp;Joe Ward,&nbsp;Semi-Official Club Historian of the Louisville Bicycle Club, the Memorial Bench may have never been dedicated to Ruff prior to the restoration and rededication on October 30, 1988.&nbsp; The Memorial Bench had been vandalized and was in desperate need of restoration.&nbsp; The Louisville Bicycle Club took up the effort and worked with the City and others to find the materials to complete authentic restoration of the bench.&nbsp; Eventually, a gentleman with a wrecker service was able to find authentic, matching stone from an old café that was torn down a few streets away. The bench was put back together, the inscription was re-chiseled, and the bench was finally dedicated in 1988, after one hundred years. The Marker Inscription reads as follows: Front "Erected 1897 by Ky. Div. of League of American Wheelmen to honor cycling pioneer A.D. Ruff (1827-96) of Owingsville, Ky. The League's oldest member, he had bicycled to Yellowstone National Park in 1893. Marble fountain and stone bench, known to generations of cyclists as "Wheelmen's Bench," designed by famed sculptor Enid Yandell."&nbsp; Back "On October 8, 1897, a parade of 10,000 cyclists passed here to celebrate a new cinder bicycling path along Southern Parkway. Viewed by 50,000 spectators,&nbsp;parade&nbsp;began at Third and Broadway and ended at Iroquois Cycle Club. Many cyclists were in costume; ladies wore bloomers. Bugles and cannon fire marked the parade's progress. Presented by the Louisville Bicycle Club - 1997"&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;

A.D. "Pap" Ruff is said to be one of the great pioneer cyclists in the country during an era when cycling was one of the most popular spectator sports. Ruff was also the oldest member of the League of American Wheelmen at the time of his death. A memorial bench was placed here in 1897 to honor him.  Ruff left a request that the Kentucky Division of the League of American Wheelmen create a place “where wheelmen may stop to drink and rest under the shade of the forest trees.”

Ruﬀ Memorial Wheelmen's Bench / Cycle Carnival 1897

Churchill Downs &amp; the Kentucky
Derby Museum

Today's Churchill Downs is a 146-acre facility
including the one-mile track and Bluegrass turf course, grandstand and
clubhouse, formal gardens, restaurant and banquet hall, and the two-floor
Kentucky Derby Museum. The track holds the record for the longest-running
continuous sporting event in the nation, with the first Kentucky Oaks, Derby,
and Clark Handicap races taking place in 1875. The Kentucky Derby, also known
as the Run for the Roses, has drawn as many as 170,000 people at a time to the
National Register of Historic Places listed Churchill Downs. With the
1895-built grandstand expanded to accommodate the crowds, the Downs have also
modernized by adding The Big Board, the world's largest 4k video screen. The
Kentucky Derby Museum features permanent and rotating exhibits, with 20,000
artifacts and library materials in its collection, including the Bolus Research
Collection in the Colonel Clark Library (accessible by appointment).

History of the
Kentucky Derby and Churchill Downs 

From the beginning of Kentucky's
statehood, horses have played an important role in its economy, not only as a
means of transportation, but as a business and sporting venture. The first
organized racing began in Lexington in 1789 and spread as other tracks were
built across the state; less than a century later, however, in the 1870s, horse
farms struggled to find good prices for thoroughbreds as interest in Kentucky
racing waned. In 1872, Colonel Meriwether Lewis Clark visited England and
France, attending the Epsom Derby in the former nation and taking inspiration
from it to begin a Kentucky Derby at home, showcasing and reinvigorating the
state industry.



Grandson of William Clark and
namesake of the explorer's partner, Meriwether Lewis, Colonel Clark was a
native Louisvillian, born only a few miles away from the site of the racetrack,
at the Blenheim estate established by his maternal great-grandfather, Armstead
Churchill (hence the track's name, which was not used until 1883). A longtime
enthusiast for horses and racing, Colonel Clark was quick to implement ideas
gained from his trip abroad upon his return to Louisville, setting up the
Louisville Jockey Club, organizing separate races for different ages and
classes of horses (including the Kentucky Derby and the Oaks, both names
borrowed from Epsom Downs races, and the Clark Handicap), and leased 80 acres
from his uncles John and Henry Churchill on which to build the track. The
original facilities comprised the clubhouse (which included living quarters for
Clark), grandstand, Porter's Lodge, six stables, and the track itself.
Louisville architect John Andrewartha designed the "Carpenter's
Gothic" style clubhouse.



The first Kentucky Derby opened the
track on May 17, 1875 to a crowd of 10,000, with Bonaventure winning the first
Oaks and Aristides winning the first Derby with African American jockey Oliver
Lewis. Since the original grandstand faced into the sun, the iconic,
twin-spired grandstand still present today was constructed on the opposite side
of the track in 1894-5, designed by Joseph D. Baldez. A new clubhouse replaced
the original, as well. However, by 1902, Churchill Downs was nearly bankrupt.
Louisville tailor Colonel Matt J. Winn (1861-1949) took over promotion as Vice
President of the track, achieving international prestige for Churchill Downs
and the Kentucky Derby and turning its first profit in 1903.In 1910, the Churchill Downs infield
became the site of the first recorded flight in Kentucky; over the years, in
addition to races, the Downs also hosted state fairs, concerts, car and
airplane races, and military shows. The first radio broadcast of the Kentucky
Derby took place in 1925, and the first television broadcast in 1949. Triple
Crown winners who raced in Louisville included Sir Barton (1919), War Admiral
(1937), Secretariat (1973), and many others. James "Sunny Jim"
Fitzsimmons, an ex-jockey, trained two Triple Crown winners, Gallant Fox (1930)
and Omaha (1935). Ben A. Jones and his son Horace trained six Derby winners.
Isaac Murphy, an African American jockey, is considered one of the greatest
jockeys to ever race in the Derby, and held the first three-Derby victory
record until 1948. Eddie Arcaro broke the record with five Derby wins, and Bill
Hartack matched him.



The 1920s and the 1960s each saw
expansions to the clubhouse and grandstand to accommodate ever-increasing Derby
crowds, and the Kentucky Derby Museum was added in 1961 and expanded in 1982.

The longest continually running sporting event in the United States is the Kentucky Derby. The world-famous thoroughbred horse race is held at the equally famous racetrack, Churchill Downs. Known as the most exciting two minutes in sports, the Kentucky Derby takes place the first Saturday in May each year at the Louisville racetrack. Churchill Downs officially opened in 1875 and is instantly recognizable by the twin spires atop the grandstands. Churchill Downs also is known for hosting the Kentucky Oaks and other thoroughbred horse racing and has hosted the Breeders’ Cup World Championship eight times.

Louisville Sports History Tour

Pee Wee Reese Statue

Introduction

Images

Backstory and Context

Sources

Additional Information