pitching machines

mom of 2 catchers:

My son has been hitting a streak machine from about 30 feet away for three years now. We use it primarily in the winter or on very wet days obth in the off season and the regular high school season. It is a great indoor machine. We bought two dozen balls and they all just about fit into a 5 gallon bucket.

They do "simulate" but in now way duplicate both a right-handed and a left handed curve ball. Not the spin action but the down/sidways movement itself. However, I think that the indoor jugs version of the poly ball machine does much better with its simulated curve ball and simulated slider. {Not the rubber balls but the poly balls].

My son does not like the feel of the poly ball when it hits the bat because he can't tell how solid he is hitting it [like he can with a baseball]. We use the machine to keep swinging the bat at a moving ball over the winter months for both conditioning and situational hitting. The streak is not the best way to work on hitting curve balls IMHO.

Hope that helps.

TW344

I own a hitting streak and an $1800 Casey Pro Atec machine that I installed in my health club.

My favorite though: Wiffleballs, and the $150 Solo-hitter.

quote:

My son does not like the feel of the poly ball when it hits the bat because he can't tell how solid he is hitting it

This is actually the reason we rarely used wiffle balls or plastic golf balls for soft toss.

Anything that reduced his enthusiam wouldn't last long with us.