Product Review: Personal Pitcher pitching machine
One of the challenges fastpitch hitters often face is getting the opportunity to get in a lot of quality swings outside of practices. While you can go to the batting cages to work with a live tosser or off a machine, that isn’t always possible — especially for younger players who don’t drive yet. So many players are limited to working off a tee in the back yard or garage.
Don’t get me wrong. Tee work is great for working on your mechanics, and I highly recommend a lot of it. Still, at some point you have to make the transition from a static to a moving ball, to work on your timing and ability to track the ball.
One product that makes it possible (and within reach of the average softball family) is the Personal Pitcher pitching machine from Sports Products Consultants. For $119 for the standard version or $149 for the deluxe version you can get a machine that shoots dozens of
plastic golf balls in a timed progression to give you an opportunity to work on your vision, timing and swing. It’s like the best of pitching machines and soft toss with small objects.
I recently had the opportunity to test the deluxe version with some of my students, from age 10 through 16. (Full disclosure: the machine was sent to me to test by the manufacturer, although with the understanding that my review was my review, whether I liked it or not.) They definitely found it challenging. More on that in a bit.
The Personal Pitcher is a fairly simple machine. A wheel on the top drops balls into the delivery area one at a time. You can set the interval between balls for five or eight seconds, I used eight seconds, and wouldn’t recommend going less than that unless you’re trying to get a workout instead of work out your swing. 
Inside the lower area are two wheels that catch the ball that’s been dropped and shoot it out a hole in the front. According to the manufacturer you can set the speed for 35, 45 or 55 mph. Considering you need to set the Personal Pitcher up about 15-20 feet from the hitter that’s plenty of speed. You can also set the unit I had to throw curve balls, sliders and screwballs, although I didn’t have the opportunity to play with those.
The Personal Pitcher mounts onto any standard camera tripod, allowing you to adjust the height to suit the hitter, and make up for non-level ground. The entire unit with the tripod is very light weight, making it easy to move around a field. It operates on a battery that carries a roughly four-hour charge, making it perfect for setting up as a hitting station at a team practice as well as setting up and taking down around the house. You can use it in the back yard, on the driveway, in the garage or even in the basement if you have the space.
While the unit comes with an instruction sheet that tells you to check for some things shifting during shipping, mine was perfectly set up and charged, so it was almost ready to go out of the box. The only things I had to do were connect the wires for the circuit board and battery — simple operations that require no technical expertise.
So, what did I think about it as a hitting device? Well, my first recommendation is the hitter should already have good swing mechanics before moving to the Personal Pitcher. Hitting those little golf balls, especially when they start veering off in different directions, isn’t easy. A hitter with poor or under-developed mechanics will probably abandon any sense of having a good swing in order to try to make contact with the ball. That will be counter-productive to your goals.
Once good mechanics are in place, however, it is definitely challenging. One of the toughest parts for hitters, at first, was getting the timing down. The Personal Pitcher has a green LED light on the front that glows brighter as it gets ready to deliver the ball, then goes dim right before it shoots out. For the first three trials, however, we used it in bright sunlight, making it difficult to see the changes in the LED. On the last one we tried it in the evening, when it was still light out but the sun was low. Definitely easier to see changes in the LED that way.
Not knowing when the ball was going to come out made it difficult to get the “load” part of the swing down. Since I emphasize load it threw everything else off. However, after a little while I would watch the balls get ready to drop into the lower chamber and say “load.” That helped the hitters figure the timing better. An audible alert, such as a click or electronic “beep” before delivery, would be a nice enhancement.
Once they got the timing down the Personal Pitcher really helped the hitters to learn to focus on seeing the ball. You would also see their determination go up after the first few misses, which was a positive in my book as well. The more hitters can learn to focus and concentrate at the plate the more their performance will improve. The Personal Pitcher definitely helps on that score.
I believe the more hitters work with the Personal Pitcher, the better they’ll get at dealing with its nuances, such as timing issues, which will allow them to take more quality swings. That was certainly my experience with it. Each hitter struggled at first, but improved as the session went on and they figured out how to work with it.
One other improvement I’d like to see made is a battery meter or some other type of warning that lets you know the battery needs recharging. If you’re using it at home it’
s probably not that big a deal. But if you’re using it in a team practice it would really be helpful to know how much time you have left on that charge, so you don’t show up to a field and have it shut down 10 minutes into practice. Of course, that would probably shoot the price tag up as well.
The standard version comes with 24 balls, while the deluxe version comes with 48 balls. Two loads of 48 balls is just shy of 100 swings, which is a pretty good workout. At eight second intervals you can hit 48 balls in roughly six minutes. That’s a lot of swings in a short period of time — as long as they’re good swings.
For more help with vision drills you can also purchase a dozen Focus Balls — a set of plastic golf balls with different colored stripes on them. Hitters can either stand and call out the color of each ball, or do so while trying to hit them. Use them alone or mix them in with
standard white balls to help train hitters to see the ball better.
The construction of the Personal Pitcher is mostly plastic, but it seemed sturdy enough for normal use. If you treat it with the same care you would use for a camera or porcelain bowl (set it down, don’t throw it around) it should last a long time.
All in all, I think the Personal Pitcher is a great investment for serious fastpitch hitters and teams. It breaks up the monotony of endless tee work, and the different variations provide plenty of challenges to keep things interesting. The best part is hitters don’t need anyone else around to use it. They can set it up and get it going all by themselves.
If you’re looking for a device that gives the feel of hitting a moving ball with some speed yet is still affordable, check out the Personal Pitcher. At half the cost of a good bat it’s definitely worth the investment.
Something to keep in mind as the season winds down
Hard to believe the summer softball season is nearly over. Seems like it was getting started just yesterday.
As the number of games grows shorter, I have a suggestion for coaches. I know how tempting it is to narrow the number of players you’re using in a game, especially if you’re desperately trying to win something big before it’s all over. But remember why your players signed up in the first place.
Be sure to continue using your bench, and finding every opportunity to get all your players in the game. You are building memories for them — and what you choose to do now will determine whether they are happy or unhappy ones.
Long after the results of games have been forgotten and trophies are tucked in a box in a crawlspace somewhere, your players will still remember their teammates, their coaches, and time spent hanging out together between games. They’ll also remember whether they were on the field or always watching from the sidelines.
Do them a favor. Make sure those memories are good ones. Find a way to make it happen for them all.
Stuff fastpitch softball coaches say
There’s a big ASA softball tournament coming up this weekend, one of those that carries a lot of prestige for being successful.
One of my students told me her coach is very uptight about it, and has been telling his team “There are no bad teams in this tournament. Pitchers, you can’t walk anyone. Fielders, you can’t make any errors.”
Gee, I thought that was always the goal, no matter how good or bad the other teams are!
Lesson learned: why it’s important to use video
I’m never shy about pointing out problems with things other fastpitch softball coaches do or say. So it’s probably about time I told a story on myself which illustrates a great point: no matter how good you think you are, it never hurts to shoot a little video to check on what you’re saying.
Last year I was working with a girl named Megan in a lesson. She had a good swing overall, but when she finished I could see that she hadn’t gotten off her back side enough. At least that’s what I thought I saw. Instead of having her toe down, heel up and an L in her back leg, her heel was pointed backwards and her back leg was pretty much straight.
She wasn’t feeling the lack of drive, so I pulled out my trusty Kodak Playsport video camera and shot a swing off a tee at 60 frames per second (fps for those who don’t know video shorthand). I figured if I could show her what she was doing wrong she’d be able to correct it.
By now you’ve probably guessed what happened. I stepped through the video frame-by-frame, and everything looked good. When she got to contact her hips had come through, she was up on her toe, and her back leg was in a lovely “L.” Continuing through she held that position until after extension, then sort of settled back into what I’d seen to catch her balance.
“Hmmm,” I said. “I guess I suck. Remember everything I told you about finishing? Forget it. You’re doing fine.”
Since that time I’ve learned a valuable lesson about the importance of shooting video whenever possible. Most of the time I’m right, and can use it to illustrate the point. After all these years I’ve gotten pretty good at diagnosing skills in real time.
But every now and then it shows me that what I think I see, and what is actually happening are two different things.
Footnote: Little pocket videos such as the Kodak Playsport are pretty cheap, and make a good investment. Yes, you can also shoot video on your iPhone, iPad or Android device, and even telestrate it, but usually there are a couple more steps before you can use it. That’s why I like the dedicated video camera. You can shoot it and show the video right away, saving time that can be applied into working on the skills.
So how about you? Ever have an experience where you’ve believed one thing but video told you something else? Go ahead and share — you’re among friends.
Fastpitch hitting: sometimes you just have to say huh?
Last night I was doing a hitting tune-up with one of my students. She’d been hitting the ball pretty well, but over the weekend she struggled a little bit. She told me her coaches told her she was dropping her back shoulder and her hands.
I just sort of rolled my eyes because usually when people say that they don’t know what they’re looking at. But then, before she stepped up to the tee I discovered the cause of the problem. She quietly said to herself “Hands to the ball.”
“Where did you get that?” I asked. “Did those knuckleheads tell you that?”
“Yes,” she answered.
“Ok then riddle me this,” I said. “If you take your hands to the ball, what are you going to do?”
She thought for about a second, went through the motion of doing it and the lightbulb came on.
“I’m going to drop my hands,” she said.
And there you have it. Her coaches were telling her to do the exact thing they were saying was a problem. It’s no wonder so many players have trouble hitting.
This is why you have to be careful about what you say as a coach. It also helps to actually know what you’re doing instead of repeating the same bad advice that limited your own playing career.
Most importantly, when you’re instructing a skill, listen to what you’re saying. You just may find what you’re saying, and the result you’re trying to achieve, are at odds with each other.
An unusual fastpitch softball Father’s Day
Today was a bit of an unusual day for me. It’s the first time in 16 years that I haven’t been coaching a fastpitch softball team in a tournament on Father’s Day. I don’t have a team this year due to some circumstances not worth going into here, so the day (and the weekend, of course) was free.
That’s not to say there wasn’t any softball in my day. I did get out to say a game where several students (one on one team, the others on the other) were playing, so at least I got my fix. Still, it’s definitely different being in the stands instead of the dugout.
I started coaching when my oldest daughter, who is now 28, was a second year 12U player. Little did I know back then how much the game would come to be a part of my life. I remember one year coaching my younger daughter’s team when the whole family came out to watch the game at an away tournament, just so we could be together.
After I watched the game I came back and did what ordinary fathers do. Went with my wife to the grocery store, did some yard work, ran some errands and grilled some Italian sausages. It’s been so long since I’ve had the chance to do that it seemed a bit surreal.
Will I get back into team coaching? Perhaps, if the right opportunity comes along. I do miss the whole team dynamic. In the meantime, today was a most interesting and unusual day. Happy Father’s Day to all you dads (and dad substitutes) who spend your days at the ballpark and the practice field. You are a big part of what keeps this game going.
Fastpitch success story
Heard another great fastpitch softball success story yesterday that I had to share. This one involves a pitcher who has gone from what Jeff Janssen might call forming to performing.
Her name is Tina Kliver, and she is a second-year 16U. I met Tina after the last summer season (2011). Her dad Bob contact me about getting a pitching lesson for Tina to see if I could help her. She really wanted to pitch, and they’d been to a couple of pitching coaches in the area who have good reputations (and one of whom has a great resume), but she was struggling.
When I met Tina her basic pitch was a fastball in the dirt at the hitter’s feet. I could see some core things I thought would help and we gave them a try. They did help in that first lesson, but more importantly Tina and I seemed to click. She has the same quirky sense of humor I do.
We worked throughout August and September, and then every other week in the off-season. (She was a two- or three-sport athete in HS plus doing some other stuff so every week wasn’t going to work.) It took a little while to lock in the core mechanics we wanted.
Her first time out throwing with the new mechanics was pretty much a disaster. She struggled and had to be taken out. But there were some good things that came out of it, and she understood what she needed to do. We kept working, not just on basics but on throwing different pitches too.
She didn’t get to pitch more than a couple of times in the HS varsity season since her team had a couple of very good, established pitchers ahead of her. Then fast-forward to yesterday.
I received the email every coach hopes to get. Tina pitched a six-inning no-hitter (have I mentioned I hate time limits?) plus a few innings in a couple of other games when other pitchers struggle. So she went from hoping to get a couple of innings here and there to being the go-to pitcher for her team.
Time will tell whether it’s permanent, but I have a feeling it is. Yesterday should give her the confidence to go out and be the pitcher she’s capable of being. It just goes to show you what you can do when you’re motivated and determined. For those of you who are struggling right now, take heart! If you want it bad enough you can make it happen.
A great story of redemption
Long-time readers know I love stories where a fastpitch softball player who is overlooked or dismissed by a coach comes back to have some success. So today I’m sharing one that was in the newspaper recently. It was about a girl who played for me in 2010 and 2011 — Erin Pauly. Thanks to her mom Jan for pointing it out to me. 
I don’t know how long the link will stay live, so just in case you can’t read it anymore here’s the short version — plus a little extra background.
First of all understand Erin is a great a kid — sweet, polite and a good teammate to all. She’s also a fierce competitor. She had kind of a rough year in 2010, but experienced a lot of success last year in the summer,
This spring she made varsity at Carmel Catholic High School as a sophomore but couldn’t quite seem to get on track. According to the story her 16U travel team tried to turn her around as a slapper, but she struggled with it when she got a chance to play. She was benched, then eventually she was demoted to the JV team.
The newspaper says she was sent down to rebuild her confidence, but having heard how it was handled — no conversation or explanation, just you’re not on varsity anymore — I think it’s safe to say she was demoted. She played JV until the end of the season, when she was brought back to varsity with a handful of other call-ups. This time, however, things were different.
Her confidence was back and she started playing like the Erin I know. She started ripping the ball from the right side, and in the last couple of playoff games got some good hits, including a big double in a losing cause in Carmel’s last game.
If you don’t get to see it, the newspaper story I’m referring to the cool thing is she got the headline and was the focus of the story. That’s a pretty cool redemption for someone who was pretty much forgotten and dimissed in mid-season.
In Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle one of the characters says “The universe has a way of working out the way it should.” In this case that was true.
Come back again soon for another story of the triumph of an underdog. In the meantime, what did you think of this story? And if you have your own story of redemption, please share it in the comments.
Congratulations to Grayslake North High School
Had a chance to watch another great high school playoff game today. This time it was Grayslake North and Prairie Ridge high schools squaring off for a Sectional title.
The game featured two of the top pitchers in the area — Kristi Gandy for Grayslake North and
Kirsten Stevens for Prairie Ridge. Both are dominant pitchers and leaders on their teams (along with being strong hitters as well), and today was no exception. Hits were tough to come by all day on both sides.
Grayslake North prevailed by a score of 2-1. The difference was a couple more timely hits for Grayslake North, and some outstanding defensive plays when they needed it.
In the top of the sixth, trailing 2-1 with two outs and a runner on second, one of the Prairie Ridge hitters stroked a single to medium deep left. Knowing how tough runs had been to score all day, the Prairie Ridge coach sent his runner home. Left fielder Courtney Peterson scooped up the ball and fired a perfect strike home. The ball didn’t make it on a fly — it actually rolled for the last part — but catcher Brooke Tracy dropped to her knees, fielded the ball, leapt to her feet and made a very sure tag to cut down the runner at home to end the inning.
Then in the top of the seventh Kristi, who was getting squeezed on the inside corner according to several observers (including Lake Forest College pitching coach Laura Matthews), issued a walk to the leadoff hitter — never a good idea in a tight game. Especially when the leadoff hitter for the inning was also the leadoff hitter for the game. But I saw Kristi and her teammates communicating something prior to facing the next hitter.
As he had throughout the game, the Prairie Ridge coach had his hitter lay down a sacrifice bunt with a runner on first. But there’s a problem when you’re predictable. Grayslake North was ready for it. When the bunt went down, instead of taking the sure out at first, third baseman Kelsey Borders fired the ball to second baseman Jessica Davis covering second, erasing the lead runner. One out.
The next hitter grounded to first baseman Christina Freese; again, instead of taking the automatic out at first she wheeled and fired to shortstop Jordyn Bowen covering second, nailing the lead runner again. Two outs. A couple of pitches later the cleanup hitter hit a short pop to Borders at third, who ran in, squeezed the ball and secured the victory.
One other effort worthy of note. I saw in the newspaper this morning that Stevens struck out 15 North hitters. That seems like a strong but not particularly remarkable performance until you realize that was in six innings since they were the visitors. So out of 18 possible outs, her left arm was responsible for 15 of them. Sounds like she’s ready to pitch for the Cubs!
It was an action-packed, tense but well-played game. Both sides are to be commended for a great job. It was everything we love about softball.
Excellence in sports doesn’t have to be miserable
My friend and co-worker Tim Boivin pointed me toward this story today from the Wall Street Journal. It’s about Olympic swimmer Missy Franklin, and her coach Todd Schmitz.
One of the interesting things in the article covered her training routine. Unlike many high-level athletes who train constantly, Missy’s coach actually has her train less than most, and even gives her weekends off. His rationale is — wait for it — he doesn’t want her to burn out.
Amazing isn’t it? A coach who doesn’t believe you have to spend every waking moment working on your skills.
The other part of the story I personally found interesting was when they talk about her relationship with her coach. Her parents say many people tried to tell them over the years that they should take Missy to a more “high level” coach.
Todd Schmitz is not an international superstar coach. In fact, the swimming club he works through, the Colorado Stars out of Denver, doesn’t even have its own pool. But Missy’s parents resisted the pressure to have her move to a “name” coach because of the excellent relationship she had with Schmitz — and the fact that she kept getting better under his instruction. It seems to have worked.
Give the article a read. It’s worth it as a reminder that excellence doesn’t have to miserable. You CAN be a world class athlete and still have a life.
Life in the Fastpitch Lane 