Why you should go to a Louisville Bats Game
by Steve Thompson
photos by Chuck Feist
One of the joys of minor league baseball is the inherent inconsistency of play. Thursday night, Chuck Feist and I made our annual pilgrimage to our first Louisville Bats game of the season. Had we gone to previous night’s game, the Bats handed it to the Columbus Clippers 7-1. Fast forward 24 hours, and it was the Clippers woodshedding the Bats 8-1. You got to love minor league baseball.
Perhaps it was the visual distraction of the Indianapolis Colts Cheer squad who performed during the game, or the awesome dance off between the Bat and the Colts team mascots.
What was visually apparent led to the home-run derby for the wrong team, and it was evident early, the Bats had not brought their A game from the night before.
So, if the baseball purist was disappointed, the other 6,500 fans in attendance didn’t seem to mind. After all, the carousel was working for the kids, the ambience of amazing food was everywhere, the atmosphere was filled with laughter, and less than 30 percent of the people I counted were on their phones.
I must address the food ambience. The food quality and diversity are off the charts, so skip a meal and go hungry. The food and libations are everywhere in this beautiful park, at almost any price point. Sure, a sno-cone is 4 bucks, but it comes in a 1- gallon planter with 6 scoops of ice and your choice of flavorings. It lasts 3 innings if you pace yourself.
There is no doubt, the Bourbon trail flows right through the ballpark. And if you’re willing to walk 500 feet to center field, you can even find draft beer for 2 bucks. That’s free enterprise hard at work. So regardless of the game’s outcome, you can be assured that the Louisville Bats experience is multi-dimensional, multi-cultural, and one heck of a great time for the entire family.
Steve Thompson is a syndicated writer covering high school and college sports including Louisville Cardinals Football and has been the play by play announcer for Grayson County Cougar sports for the past five years. Thompson is best known for his work on the Sporting Times radio show in both Elizabethtown and Bardstown from 2010 to 2016 and has called Area High School Sports in the Hardin County area for over five years. Thompson is also the father of the longtime sports radio show “The Sports Fanatic” which ran on ESPN 101.5 FM for nearly five years.
