About
About 30 years ago while coaching baseball at Coronado High School I noticed a deficiency in our ability to consistently hit the ball to all fields with power. Our hitting philosophy was pretty much the basic, rip the inside pitch out front, middle middle send it back where it came from, and let the outside pitch travel and drive it the other way. We could pull long distance foul balls with the best of them, we handled the middle pitch pretty good, but when it came to the away pitch we SUCKED bad. Usually a defensive swing that resulted in a week ground ball out. We needed to find a way in practice to consistently put a ball in the exact spot we want the hitter to make contact.
At the time batting Tee’s were around but not used much at the high school level because they were cheaply built and usually broke in the first few days of use, and I forget all the reasons why but tee use seemed taboo for a long time probably because it was used by 5 and 6 year old’s in little league T-ball. I remember we tried sitting a coach behind a screen about 15 feet in front of the batter and have him try to paint the black away over and over. This seemed to work ok but didn’t translate in games probably for a couple reasons, timing was off and the hitters would cheat both physically and mentally. Next we focused on soft toss from a 45 and were making some progress until a coach got a broken eye socket from a miss hit ball.
The search was on for a new type of equipment that would meet the standard of putting a ball in the same location (two ball widths or less) over and over again. Through out the 1990’s I searched high and low for any type equipment that might work. Nothing. As time went on I bought and tried out every soft toss invention that hit the market. Our “Iron Mike” probably would have come the closest, but it was broken, and we couldn’t afford to have it repaired. Nothing would work well enough, no accuracy, no consistency, no adjustability etc, etc. I know what you’re thinking, sounds just like HS pitching, yes that’s true but remember we were trying to control all aspects of ball location for training.
In the late 90’s we got our first 2 wheel jugs machine and I thought that would be the solution but not even close. When we told the hitters to only go after the balls on the black away, they would only get a few good swings each round. Yes we could hit the middle away but still not with any power. Now I had to get the stink-eye from the other coaches because I lobbied so hard for the Jugs, we spent all of our funds on the machine and it didn’t do what the rep said it would. After this I had a lengthy discussion with a major 3 wheeled pitching machine company and he told me in their accuracy testing that they try to shoot a baseball through a 9 inch circle and achieve about an 80% success rate but only if the ball hits the wheels with the exact same seems orientation. Also, he wasn’t sure if that was from 45 ft or 60 ft.
After that I decided that since I couldn’t find a suitable toss machine and pitching machines weren’t the answer, I would just build it myself. I had the idea in my head on how it should work and I set out on my venture. How hard could this be, I knew what I wanted it to do just had to figure out how. I was absolutely positive that I would design, build, produce, market and sell my idea all in say one year, HAHA. I tried everything I could think of, spring tension launch, air pressure, catapult launch, hydraulic pressure, spinning wheels, mechanical advantage, levers action, and several others. I even paid a couple electrical engineers to study my idea only to be told, not possible. Nothing would work good enough or if it did work it was too big to be practical. But I never gave up looking and trying!
Finally, about two years ago, by chance, I connected with an old guy (like me) that could think out of the box and he told me he thought there would be a way to do it. Sure, I’ve heard this story before, he convinced me to proceed and I gave him the specifications that had grown over time. Small and light weight, Portable, Battery Operated, Rechargeable, Variable Power, Single Mode or Multi Mode, Bluetooth Capable, controlled by a Mobile App on a phone or tablet, and be able to launch a ball in the weights from .5oz to 12oz to a minimum height of 24 inches. After many trials and errors and a bunch more money the concept is proven and the Precision Hitter is born.
After navigating the patent process (bunches of more money) we received our patent pending status and expect the full patent to be issued this year. We have built the single station initial prototype and are using it to demonstrate at conventions and focus groups to gather information from users and coaches before the multi station prototypes are built. (Bunches more money haha)