Needlepointers Balk at Museum’s ‘Old Bats’ Ad

Needlepointers 1, Louisville Slugger Museum 0.

When the Kentucky shrine to baseball put up a billboard proclaiming that it had “more old bats than a needlepoint convention,” needlepointers swung back--and connected.

Workers this week painted over most of the phrase, leaving the words “old bats” above a picture of a century-old bat. The billboard was visible from Interstate 64, one of the busiest routes into town.

The museum shares Louisville with the headquarters of a national embroiderers’ group, whose members cried foul.

Museum director Bill Williams wasn’t even safe at home. His wife, partner in a uniform and embroiderers’ shop, “let me know she didn’t think it was funny.”