quote:How does that show less parental involvement than a radar gun? A good radar can be used at the back of the crowd. I'm constantly dodging photographers who think they have a license to move in front of anyone.
Well, It demonstrates parental involvement to the benefit of the entire team as opposed to behavior some people (like the coaches) might perceive as too narrow a focus on just my own son's performance ... particularly when they are trying to get the pitchers to NOT focus on gassing it up and losing their location control. The coaches don't want to see some dad standing right up to the fence with his POS Bushnell when they're telling the kid to stop trying to light up the gun and ease up a couple MPH to hit his spots.
I shoot over 150 still photos every game, all players, and video tape some of the more important games. I post-process all the photos and post them to our team website (www.knightsbaseball.com, which I maintain for the team. Then at the end of each season, I take the accumulated stills and video and compose a 30 min team video, with custom disc labels and photo jacket inserts, music audio track overlays, special effects, and then burn over 35 DVDs for the players, coaches, and school administration. All on my dime and nights and weekends. Lastly, I'll take the full resolution JPEG files (32+ Gb) and burn them to data DVDs for the coach to keep should a player ever come back as an alumni 20 years from now and want to get prints.
Now, if the coach knew I had a radar gun and he asked me to get a reading for him, no problem. I go get the reading. But with my POS Bushnell, no way I can be unobtrusive at my size (6'4" - 235) ... I literally have to put the stupid thing through the fence. I actually broke it when my son was a freshman: had it up to a hole in the fence to get an accurate reading, a hard FB was fouled straight back and hit the bottom of the handle through the fence, popped the cheap retention cap off the bottom, and the battery pack dropped to the ground and shattered. I took it as a message ...
The team has a Jugs, so if I'm curious, I just ask. Plus, a reading off a "team gun" is a more believable, objective reading if anyone (e.g., a college coach) wonders if he legitimately can throw at the velocity I have posted on his player profile.