THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

I have one of those nets with a box in the middle that launches the ball back when you hit it. It can be angled to return grounders, pop-ups, whatever you want. Mine’s a cheap piece of crap that fell apart within the year, but if you get a good one they’re a lot of fun.

Obviously, the thing I was talking about above is for pitching and fielding/throwing.

As for hitting… I’ve heard good reviews for the Derek Jeter zip-line contraption, but I’m not sure if it can be used alone.

When my son was around 4, I got a device that you load with about 4-5 plastic balls, then when you step on a button, there is a brief delay, and then one of the balls pops up to about hitting height and you nail it.  It’s good for timing, and figuring out where to stand, etc,; a lot better than hitting off a tee, though not as good as hitting a real pitch, of course.  Can’t remember what it was called, though, we sold it or gave it away.  It was made of light gray plastic, with green and orange buttons and a black sleeve for the balls…

I haven’t had much luck with the “return” nets, or a pitching target type thing I got once, but that may be because my son’s enthusiasm goes way up if there’s a chance of damaging or destroying something (windows, neighbor’s cars, pitcher’s body parts, the ball itself, etc), so he much prefers hitting.

I don’t suppose you’ve got a brick wall handy?  That was my practice target for a long time - solid returns, individual bricks to aim at, etc.  Had to use a tennis ball, though…

Yeah, when I was growing up, we had the brick wall, plus the school was right around the corner.  That was perfect.  Practiced everything against that.

Here, we’ve got the garage, so we have to park the cars on the street.  The backyard has no good wall.  So, that’s why I need some sort of contraption.

Tom:  I couldn’t find a way on the site to see what it is that you’re looking for, but I had great luck with my two boys using a tennis ball machine.  They now have some that are portable.  You can slow them now or speed them up.  As they got older I even rigged it up to throw curve balls.  The kids weren’t afraid of getting hit either.

I literally just bought “Triple Hit Baseball” - it arrived yesterday. I think it’s more geared to smaller kids than the “Better Batter” version also by Fisher-Price. It has a tee-ball mode, a pop up mode, and a pitch mode. My 6yo daughter and 2yo son had fun with it although it was probably too difficult for them beyond the tee-ball setup. Then again, my family is not very athletic - YMMV.

My only complaint was that in popup mode the ball drifts to the right hand batter side. That’s fine for righties, but my son is a lefty so he couldn’t reach the ball because the machine was in the way.

For $23 on amazon it’s an easy buy. We’ll have fun with it, and it will be more enjoyable for my kids once they improve their hitting skills.

Matt

I’m 22, so about 4-6 years removed from my high school playing days I can honestly say that the hit-away (the thing you tie to a pole and loops around based on your swing speed) helped turn me from Travis Lee (great defense, average offense) to Todd Helton (great defense, much better than Travis Lee offense).  Granted, it was only Philadelphia and only the Public League (not the much better Catholic League) but still, it helped immensely.