Grand Slam Journey

43. Adam Battersby: Exploring the Intersection of Sports and Technology with Pro-Batter Sports

• Klara Jagosova • Season 2

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Step into the world of sports and technology innovation as we embark on a fascinating journey with our guest, Adam Battersby, the creative genius behind Pro-Batter Sports. We'll be delving into the crux of how his revolutionary virtual reality pitching machine is stepping up the training game for hitters. 

Beyond baseball, we'll walk you through Adam's personal and business journey, highlighting how his baseball and wrestling experiences have honed his entrepreneurial spirit. Hear about the challenges brought on by the pandemic, their impact on his operations, and how diversification became a survival mantra. And amidst all this, we'll get to unravel Adam's philosophy on the constant cycle of disruption, an inevitable part of any business journey.

We explore the worlds of baseball, cricket, softball, and tennis. We'll examine how these sports are leveraging tech innovations to increase their fan base and player skills, with insights from Adam's invaluable experiences. From the affordability of advanced machines to the potential growth of these sports, we'll cover it all. So, buckle up and join us as we traverse the intersection of sports and technology.

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Klara:

Hello, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Grand Slam Journey podcast, where I, together with my guests, discuss various topics related to finding our passion and purpose, maximizing our potential sports, life after sports, and transitioning from one chapter of our lives to the next, growing our skills and leadership in whatever we decide to put our minds into. For me and my guests today areas of sports, business and technology. Today, I bring you a conversation with Adam Battersby. Adam is a perfect guest for my podcast. Adam and I talk about his journey in baseball. We also talk about pro-better sports. Pro-better sports is the very manifestation of leading-edge advancements in baseball that have breathed new life into a sport many had declared dead not so long ago. With new major league baseball rule changes in effect this season, the pace of the game has increased and, along with it, a renewed interest in what was once known as America's pastime. Such innovations as the pitch clock replay and the upcoming robot empires calling balls and strikes have jump-started the sport and caught the attention of kids who, not so long ago, thought that baseball was too slow. As far as Adam's role in all this, back in 1990s he was just another teenager playing high school baseball with dreams of reaching the big leagues. The only problem was he had trouble hitting an inside curveball, a common problem for many hitters. His father, greg, was a part-time coach who tried different things. To help his son, he adjusted his swing, moved him around in the batter's box and had him try different bats. The biggest challenge came from not being able to replicate with any consistency the types of pitches that were causing so much trouble. Although betting practice pitchers tried feeding him a steady diet of inside curves, they couldn't maintain the velocity of competitive pitchers, nor were they accurate enough. To help him work on his problem areas, greg hit upon the idea of a virtual reality pitching machine.

Klara:

Pitching machines had been around for decades, but there were mechanical devices that catapulted a baseball toward the hitter. In baseball, timing is everything and with these machines it was impossible. But what if video projection could be combined with a mechanical delivery system? After some brainstorming sessions with engineers, the pro batter baseball pitching simulator was born. Over the time the machine was perfected and today allows a hitter to face the life-sized image of a real pitcher winding up and delivering a pitch on a video screen. An actual ball is thrown through a small hole in the screen by computer-controlled pitching module, which can deliver fast balls, curved balls, sliders change ups at speeds up to 100 miles per hour with pinpoint accuracy. Greg's invention would go on to claim 13 US and 20 international patents and used at the top levels of the game for hitter training. It would also go on to help spark a revolution, most appropriately for a sport uniquely tied to the relationship between father and sons. If you build it, they will come has become a mantra for pro-batter sports.

Klara:

Baseball has always been the slowest of the major sports to embrace modern innovations. While MLB widely adopted replay review in 2014, the NFL had done so 28 years earlier, but pro-batter sports, now in its 24th year of operation, has been ahead of its time for much of its existence. Finally, the game has caught up with its pioneering melding of sports and technology, and demand is off the charts for pro-batter simulators, not only baseball, but softball and cricket as well. As part of its continuing expansion, this year, pro batter sports partnered with some of the world's largest technology manufacturer and service provider to produce its leading edge simulators to meet growing demand in both the United States and abroad. Meanwhile, adam, who once inspired a game-changer in sports training, now runs day-to-day operations for pro-batter sports as the company's president, and he can still count on his father for helpful advice whenever he asks. Today we talk about all of that Adam's journey in baseball and as an inventor and entrepreneur of pro-batter sports.

Klara:

If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with someone who you believe may enjoy this. Well, consider leaving a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, and don't forget to subscribe so you don't miss the next episode. On that note, one of my favorite quotes that I read recently reads quote almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you. Quote On that note, I will be unplugging myself for the next week and I will be back with you in August, and now I bring you Adam Battersby and pro-batter sports. Enjoy the listen. Hello Adam, thank you for accepting my invitation to be a guest on Grantsland Journey Podcast. How are you? I'm good in yourself. Great, happy Monday Happy.

Adam:

Monday.

Klara:

Start of a new week. Where are you?

Adam:

going from. I am out of Connecticut, pro-batter is right outside New Haven where Yale University is, and then I live about 45 miles north of New York City.

Klara:

It sounds like a nice strategic location. It should be great for the summer good weather.

Adam:

Yeah yeah, summers are nice. They're too short, though, so you've got to take advantage of them, because if you blink, it's over. That comes the winter. They're cold, the winter, so you gotta take advantage of them.

Klara:

The four seasons. I lived in Jersey for a while so I still remember the four seasons and in some ways it's kind of good because it really makes you take advantage of the summer months and the long days and the warm weather.

Adam:

Yeah.

Klara:

Hopefully you're enjoying all of that with your family.

Adam:

Yeah, yeah, and spring and fall are really nice here, so they're definitely nice. Just winters kind of get a little cold, but we get through them.

Klara:

Before we dive into our conversation, please introduce yourself to our listeners.

Adam:

So my name's Adam Battersby and I'm the president of Pro-Batter Sports and I'll give you kind of a quick overview of what Pro-Batter does. We sell video pitching machines for baseball, softball, cricket. Basically. All of our machines have a big video screen in front of them and they show a whole video windup of a right hand or left hand pitcher before the ball comes out of a hole in the video screen. So it looks like a real-life pitch or stone of ball to you. So it's a great training tool for sports.

Klara:

Yes, and I'm so curious to dive into all of that because I didn't know anything like this existed before. I made more research into what you and your company does, and just before this podcast, I was actually watching some of the videos that you have online, and so look forward to diving into all the different applications of what you've created. But before we do, I wanted to mention you're actually perfect example of a guest for my podcast, because you're a former athlete. You actually started with baseball and you've created this company with your dad from actually something that you have seen as your own personal weakness, and a weakness that many other baseball players had gone through, and so you decided not just to sit but to actually put this into action and start solving this problem. So I feel I'm still a little bit over your thunder, but I would love you to tell us a little bit more about just even your upbringing what brought you to baseball, this pain point that you and your dad had uncovered early on.

Adam:

Growing up I always played baseball. My dad was my coach During the little league years. It was a lot of fun. We always want to local batting cages, but at one point my dad wanted to build a batting cage in our backyard, so built this big batting cage and bought a two wheel pitching machine. The machine at the time was great.

Adam:

The only problem with it is that it's hard to raise your arm up the ball. You put the ball in but it doesn't always go through smoothly, so there's some hiccups going through. So sometimes you can't get a good hitting rhythm. You're hitting off your front foot. You can't really time the ball that well. Another problem was is that if you go from a fastball to a current ball, you just adjust the dials, tilt the pitch head and then test pitches before you know to strike. Now at that point you know what's coming, so you don't want to have to put the current balls. You just learn where to put the bat, and that was my biggest problem. So fastballs I could hit all day long, like a lot of other baseball players. When it came to breaking pitches, the current balls or sliders, that's where I had some issues and that's what ultimately ended my playing career because they're hard to hit.

Adam:

So my dad is an IP attorney by trade, so he came up with the idea of having a pitch machine, the whole database in it. That's what works out of a touchscreen controller. So basically, whatever pitch you want you can do. A fastball, current ball, slider, sinker any speed you want, any location, all of that touchscreen, so the batter doesn't see the pitch head move behind the video screen. But you actually have to learn how to hit the ball, so you have to look for the spin, also the video of the pitcher when they throw the ball the arm speeds are where they should be and the arm angles as well. So if a curveball is coming, the pitcher's actually his arm is cocked like he's throwing a real curveball. So you got to pick up that cue to really learn how to hit it. And then about three or four or five engineers later we got to where we wanted to be. So it's been quite a journey actually.

Klara:

Yeah, how amazing. And was it really just you and your dad trying to solve this problem? It sounded like mainly for you, first to help you improve your skills. But being part of this sport, you have seen this problem being broader across the board. Was that pretty much the initial ignition behind the idea?

Adam:

Yeah, and, like I said, curveballs are hard to hit. You know all the different breaking pitches. They're hard to hit and pitchers are getting better. They're throwing harder, they're training harder, they're getting better. I mean now you know, for a major league pitcher first, you know, 100 miles an hour was hard to hit. Now a lot of the pitchers are throwing 100 miles an hour and you have to just train. I mean you have to get better to compete. I mean, if you look at a batting average, a good hitter is hitting 300. That means he's only hitting the ball three times out of 10. You know that's a good percentage for batting average. So it's hard to hit the baseball. So anything that you can do to get better, to increase that batting average, will help you and ultimately get you to the major leagues.

Klara:

Yeah, when you and I were originally speaking about this opportunity for podcasts, I found the efficiency that you can create for training with your product and the solution I thought was fantastic, because I can imagine just even being on the field and I'm not obviously a baseball or softball player. But the interesting thing about baseball for me was always when I go to some of the parks and I see kids train. It just seemed that exactly what you mentioned the average of the time that you spent to practice the exact skills versus the amount of times that you don't hit the ball or kind of standing it just seems like there is a lot of time in between to actually not being able to hit the ball. Yeah, and so the more balls you're able to hit in a short period of time, I think it just adds up. So even if you increase the average per hour or day with your product, I feel like it would be so beneficial.

Adam:

Yeah, another problem is growing up a lot of the pitch machines out there. They weren't very accurate, so if you're getting 25 or 20 pitches per round, a lot of those balls I mean, they're bouncing, they're coming high, low and there's a lot of wasted pitches. But our machine is very accurate and you get all game like pitches. There's no wasted pitchers, so every single pitch is exactly where it should be, which makes the machine a great training tool.

Klara:

Yeah, I do want to go back just a little bit more into your sport, baseball because I have my guests from a variety of sports and I'm always curious what draws us to be passionate about the sport we choose for ourselves. Was there someone who influenced you, adam, or how did you recognize this passion for baseball early on in your life? I just liked it.

Adam:

I liked hitting, I liked the guys around me, my teammates. I like competing, I like, I like the game. I think it's a great sport. I also played football and I wrestled, and wrestling is a phenomenal sport too because it's one on one. You know, you know that's it. There's no one there to help you. So and if you lose, it's like losing in a fight and you want to get that much better. You know. You want to train that much hard, you want to run, you want to lift more weights, you want to get more skilled. So you're not losing, you're not in a position where you're losing and you feel down yourself and you let your team down. I love wrestling, but baseball, I mean, it's a great sport as well. It's always fun to hit, you know, home runs or triples or double. It's just fun.

Klara:

That's an interesting dynamic though the wrestling and baseball, just to reflect back. This is something I always ponder about. Do you think that somehow even your wrestling Experience helped you with baseball and the mental skills? Because what I feel about wrestling is because it's a one-on-one and it's so physical you really Literally have to try to, I guess, stay alive. So there's no physical injury, but there's the physicality of that a person being on top of you, yeah, and sort of pushing you to the ground. So I thought that mental strength that you develop through probably some of the physical sports that carry over to other areas, perhaps even baseball, I wonder if that kind of helped you.

Adam:

Yeah, absolutely, because wrestling pushes you to a limit training wise, mental wise, everything. So it really helped me in life and in sports that when you think you're tired, you're not really tired, there's still something to tank. You got to keep on going and you push you to your limits, which is it's fun. In a crazy way it's fun. But you know, I mean you have to be a little crazy to get in a sport because you got to just push yourself and life as well.

Klara:

Yes, I've never tried some of the extreme sports. I guess what I call the wrestling, mma or boxing. I've been only thinking about it. I feel like it requires another level of human to get that.

Adam:

MMA is a way above wrestling just because it's. Those guys are just crazy and you leave with broken bones and At those guys are nuts.

Klara:

Yeah, but back to baseball and Pro batter sports. You have been actually in business for quite a few years now. Yes, you've engineered this solution originally about 20 years ago. Is that correct?

Adam:

Yes, we started in 1999, so almost 25 years we've been in business for, which is Pretty incredible. Actually, if you think about it, you know it's been a long journey, a lot of ups and downs. It's been fun, but it's it's been a long journey.

Klara:

Yeah, tell me about some of the ups and downs. What stands out to you the most?

Adam:

Well, some of the ups I mean you know any big sale we have like a major league team or player I mean those are always fun. You know big college that's always fun. It really reinforces what you're doing and the long hours and the the work that you're putting in it really reinforces it. I remember when the New York Yankees bought their first machine I mean that was, that was a high and it was cool I met with Brian Cashman at Yankee stadium and then when they came back and bought four more machines, that was even a greater feeling because you know a major league ball player used it and loved it so much that they came back To buy more for different modeling teams. So that was great.

Adam:

Some of those I mean Colvin, was awful they shut down gyms, which are basically our biggest market. You know training centers and Gyms they shut those down. They shut down you know major league baseball, college baseball. So that was tough. After COVID was hard as well because Couldn't get parts. So we had to. We had to look for different vendors. So now, what's good about? I guess it was bad at the time because we had no vendors for, say, motors or other parts, but then we had a search for more vendors and now we have like five different vendors for each part. So that's helped us in a way that, you know, we can compare Timeline so one vendor has eight week timeline and one vendor is six then we can go to that one of the six and save a few weeks. But it's you gotta just you gotta keep on pushing, you know, and get through it. It was a tough time for everyone, but now, luckily, things are back to normal, which is nice.

Klara:

Yeah, that's great and it seems like, through some of the hardship and COVID which I think was especially from Logistics and sourcing parts, I think that was really difficult for Many of not all, businesses around the world. I think that really taught us how to diversify or think about diversifying supply chains and logistics. Yeah, it seems like you've actually been able to come up with a better solution now and, through the hard times, optimize and create a resiliency in your supply chain and logistics Meet you have to if you don't, that's it.

Adam:

You know, you might as well just pack your bags and go home. Another problem was with COVID was the work staff. It's hard and you know all these big manufacturers. They're only working on half-staff so they can't produce Products quickly and therefore it's expensive. It was just a real mess, so I'm kind of glad that's over with.

Klara:

Yes, the world's been in a crazy cycle, I still feel, ever since COVID or still kind of going on, but it does seems like, at least when I spoke to you last you're having some great success now with things opening up and growth in your business areas for opportunities. What is your primary market for pro better sports, and where do you see the growth coming from now?

Adam:

Yeah, so our biggest market by far is the commercial training center in Bannock Hage market. Basically, wherever you go to pay for time against the machine, that's our biggest market, so we do very well in that market. We also do some amusement. We've done that. We do major league in my league, baseball. We do colleges. As of a few years ago we had the number one D1 college and number one D2 college, so that was pretty exciting for us. University of Florida is one of them. They just lost in the finals to LSU but they had a great run and they're on their second machine so so that was pretty cool to see.

Adam:

We do a lot of home installations as well and private installations. Some of these business owners have the space in their warehouse and the pro Bannock Hage in for the punch team to play and train against. We do a lot of that. You know semi private facilities, so that's pretty cool. Overseas we do a lot of that for cricket, for example. That's pretty exciting. When we started the company we never thought cricket would be a market and and it is and it's exciting. It was a little bit of a learning curve to learn the sport but it was a revenue stream, so it was nice, and it was cool, though, to see how other parts of country train and learn new sports, so that was all pretty cool stuff.

Klara:

Yeah, that's interesting. I've actually heard you on another podcast talking about the cricket story a little bit. How did that come to life at him? Tell me a little bit more about it, and how did you uncover this as an opportunity for growth.

Adam:

ECB, which is the UK cricket national team and the cricket Australia. They're both rivals. One of the coaches I was gonna mixed up one of the coaches and one of the teams Went to Florida to see how the major league baseball players are playing. We're training. So they went to one of the teams, one of our customers locations, and they saw the provider machine. They said, wow, this thing's cool. You know, can you make it for cricket? So we hold with each other and said, well, yeah, we can do it, we just need help working on the database. So there's so many different deliveries for cricket. So we worked with one of their coaches. They came to the US, sat down and created a whole database of them. So the machine it was great. And then that same coach once the other rival team and then they bought two more and then it kind of just All snowball from there. So then we have the ICC, which the international cricket council, by one in Dubai. So to New Zealand, australia. It's been a fun run with that.

Klara:

I should have done actually a little bit more research on this, but you may know this it's cricket potentially even bigger market when it comes to the amount of people who play. Yes, I believe cricket match Lee be one of the larger sports.

Adam:

Yes, so I read and I've heard that soccer is number one sport in the world and crickets number two because it's played everywhere. You know, if you go to, like, you know, india, bangladesh, south Africa, I mean cricket it's, it's huge and the matches are five days. Wow. So it's crazy. It's a five day match, but now they had the 20, the 2020, which is a, you know, shorter match, kind of like the length of a baseball game. But it's huge, it's absolutely huge overseas.

Klara:

Yeah, and then you also specializing in softball, so basically softball, cricket. Do you have any other sports that you're considering, adam?

Adam:

Well, we've kicked around a few ideas, but as of now, no. But softballs really been taking off because we're in our third generation machine that we've made a pro batter, and the second generation, or the first two generations, were very expensive. So the first machine was like 75,000, the second machine was 45,000 and then now the new px3 is like 27 5, so it's come down quite a bit in price. So we haven't sold a lot of softball machines because they're kind of expensive. So if someone's buying one machine they're gonna buy a baseball, because baseball is a bigger market. Now, since the price of down down, we saw a lot more softball machines, so that market's been growing nicely. It was exciting.

Klara:

One thing that came into mind when I was watching the videos, I mean, other than this looks super fun. I would want to try it myself. The other thought was why doesn't everyone have this product? And literally, because I was watching it, it seems like such a perfect tool and compliment for Any team, whether you're pro or minor league, or whether your college team or perhaps even the high school. Because it seems like baseball has been falling behind Perhaps a bit of the faster sports or the more entertaining sports nowadays.

Klara:

Because it seems like that's just where our society is heading, and so wonder if this could actually inspire a new generation of kids to get More excited about it with something that almost seems like it has this gamification Component, because you can see the person in the real life and really kind of get the feel for the game.

Adam:

Yeah, I think, like what you said, you know, a lot of the kids are. They're playing so many video games, so the visual aspect they really love. But I think that the biggest reason why more people don't have our machine is this price and that's why, you know, with technology advancements that come out, we try to lower our price as much as we can. So I guess that when we first came out 25 years ago was $75,000 and now it's coming down at 275 and we have machines that start at like 8,000. So we're trying to get more machines out there because kids love it. I mean the second a kid walks in a bank agency is our machine. I mean there is, his mouth just drops. They're like this is so cool. I mean it is a cool product, they're fun to hit against, but they're also a great trading tool.

Adam:

So when we first started I was a testing guy, right. So I had to go there and you know, test out the machine and you know how help test session site. And I remember like my father called me up one day like 11 o'clock on a Friday night. He's like we're hurry, I'm still the baddie. I didn't realize how late it was because I was hitting, and hitting and hitting, and trying to challenge myself and go fast and go. No different breaking pitches, breaking pitches that I have much luck with, more fastballs. But it's a fun product, it really is.

Klara:

Yeah, and I also remember when you and I spoke first is it has this beautiful ability to Adapt, not just based on varietate, but also speed. Yes, so it can be really any level. What are the speeds that you can address to Adam for different levels of players?

Adam:

So the machine goes from 40 to 100 miles an hour. The baseball machine has 10 different pitches and it's any location you want. And also with our machine you pitch by pitch. You do a repeat mode. So if I want to say 10, 80 mile an hour fastballs right down the middle, I can do that. It has automatic mode which comes with 10 preset sequences. One's like a fastball, curveball, change up and then the last one is I could record my own sequence. So if I'm going to face a pitcher that has, or you know, historically pitch, you know Usually fastball then breaks up a curveball after and then change up, I can do that same kind of sequence and that is just great. But you have to learn how to hit the ball and read the spin, like I said before, and that's challenging. You know to do all that. But that's what it does. It challenges you, you know, get you to the next level, which is what we're trying to do.

Klara:

Yes, I think, especially all athletes, right, that's how we improve. We got to be challenged and grow our skills little by little, and I don't think that really caught my eye when I was watching the video and I wanted to make sure I understood it correctly. Adam, is that you can actually pick a pitcher. So if there's a professional league and then I'm playing against a specific pitcher, I can actually pick him to imitate those specific pitches that might be coming? Is that accurate?

Adam:

Yes and no. So basically our machine has Two varieties at the monolithic level and two lefties of the monolithic level. We also have little leagues as well. If you're kids seven years old, we have little league picture images and we turn the speed way down for them. But we can record any pitcher and put them on our video screen. We don't own the rights to major league pitchers and they're very hesitant to give us their video image because we sell to major league baseball so they from players can train against them before they face in a real-life game. That said, we had the kairat orakis. What they did is they took a stadium video of kershaw and gregi and they gave it to us and we did the editing and put it on the video screen so, before they face those two pitchers, they could train against them, which helped them out quite a bit. So well, we can't sell them, but we can do the editing and give it to the customers, which was pretty cool.

Klara:

Yeah, how amazing. And Even just looking from an athlete perspective, right, I guess, defaulting to Perhaps tennis. If I were to play against serena billiams, just imagine that she's standing on the other side of my court and seeing her picture. I think just that mindset, perspective and anticipating of what may come. I'm wondering how much more it can help mentally. Do you have any? I know these things are probably private and perhaps especially the professional teams don't want to share, but any statistics, adam, that you can share, even anecdotally, when it comes to improvement?

Adam:

I'm sure we have studies. But back to the. You know, facing the professional player, if you're gonna face them in the actual game and you train against them, that makes you better prepared and that's what you want to be. Before you face any picture, you want to be better prepared. So in setting, well, if you face krashov the first time it might be a little intimidating Because he's still good. And then what you train against for hours upon hours, upon hours, and you know who's 12 to 6 curveball, learn how to hit it. When you get in there it's almost I want to say cakewalk, because it's not quite a cakewalk, but I think your mind's at ease and you're more confidence. And hitting is a lot of confidence. If you're not confident at the plate it's hard to hit. So I think that will build a confidence level.

Klara:

Yeah, I can totally imagine it being an athlete, and just to share from my tennis perspective. So my friends who played professionally and definitely literally were in the position where they went to play against Serena Williams, yeah, and so you could sense how timid they were just going to the court and when you have that mindset that you already worried and intimidated before your game starts, I mean that's already halfway defeat, right, you have to be confident you can beat them. So anything you can do to even help envision that and this is not even envisioning there's actually really seeing that player on the screen. I can just imagine from an athlete perspective how great of a impact that would have on Preparing for the game and yeah being more confident.

Adam:

Yeah, and it's both physical Getting prepared physical and mentally too yes, and I think that would help in both aspects.

Klara:

Yeah, what I don't think I wanted to go back. You mentioned the great price decrease now, yeah, and so I'm wondering is it mainly Technological curve and advancements, or how have you achieved this kind of decline and price over that period of time?

Adam:

It's a few different factors. One is different engineers will bring different ideas to the table and saying you know, we can do this by doing this. And also technology. I mean we first started a projector was, I think, 2000 lumens that's a brightness of it for 3000 dollars or whatever, and now we can get 5000 lumens for 15 heart bucks or 1200 bucks. It's crazy, like you. Technology it's like computers. You know they get better and better and faster, faster for cheaper. So that's helped out a bunch. And also when you're around for a longer time, you know what's going on. You know what's gonna fail more, what has to be beat up, what can be less than then all that stuff. So it's kind of sepid and puddles, if you will, and learning the machines in the industry and just been ideas from engineers. I mean that helps a lot as well.

Klara:

Yeah, I think what I'm hearing you say is Also sticking with the process and being aware of any of the technology evolution and taking advantage of that, and from even my business perspective, that requires typically quite a good team work and recruitment of the right team and engineers. Yeah, have you been able to achieve that, adam? It seems like you have a tight team and ability to recruit people who are able to engineer innovative Things and solutions and take advantage of the technology evolution.

Adam:

Yeah, I mean I would say over the past 25 years that we've had a good teammates, you know, working with us, some more than others, of course, but, um, the first couple of employees we had, I mean we had them for 15, 20 years, you know, we had them for a very long time because they were good. You know, we outsource a lot as well, so by outsourcing can bring in new ideas. If you don't like one guy could always score another guy and bring in new ideas. But the outsourcing I think has helped us a lot as well Because it's allowed us to, like I said, get new ideas and get new eyeballs on the machine and opinions and kind of allow us to bounce ideas off each other and all that speaking of ideas, I Get plenty of ideas Again.

Klara:

Going back to the video that I watched, one of the things that really stood out to me and I'm comparing it to tennis Perhaps the stroke that is most similar is return.

Klara:

Uh-huh and it's such an important stroke because really every ball in tennis either starts with serve and serve is easy To practice.

Klara:

All you have to do is you just get a basket of balls and you go on the court and you serve yeah, and I've done that plenty in my life at food shopping cart about, you know, 500 bowls a day. But the return is way harder because that's similar to what I would think about pitching, because it requires somebody else serving to you and then similar to actually your product. It requires different speeds and different rotations and different angles and it also requires a little bit of the guessing because you need to be able to read Same thing like in a baseball, the hand-eye coordination and kind of reading the player where the ball is going. Has anybody brought up that idea? And I don't know if there's necessarily a market for just returns, but I know there's so many people who struggle with the stroke and it's so instrumental yet so hard To practice because you need great servers. The better servers you can practice your return yeah, the better you will become as a tennis player.

Adam:

Yeah, we've had a few people come to us and ask if we want to make a tennis machine. Well, one of the issues we had was they're not very mobile. Well, they can be. We have to put on wheels and then, you know, push away, you know what when you're not using it. All that. So that was one of the biggest hurdles, but I think we now know how to overcome that.

Adam:

We had a local high school not a local high school, a high school Minnesota. They got a grant from the Minnesota twins and they actually put a machine in their gym. But part of the issue they had was that it was a shared space so they needed to move the machine After each practice. So we put everything on big castor wheels and they're able to push it to the side or in that lock closet when they're done using it. So we can always do that. And actually in the newer model PX3 it's a lot smaller than the older model PX2. So maybe we will revisit the tennis market because that is a huge market. Yeah, I know there are pitching machines out there for tennis. There's a few out there and I think they do pretty well.

Klara:

Yeah, and there's a lot of ball machines and feeding machines I write. They sort of simulate especially the strokes and those maybe are not as important for Seeing the contact point. I think what they do is okay. But I especially thought about serve and Kind of your strengths, combining it with the motion and the different speeds and the ball kind of coming from high. Yeah, I mean, there's not a really tennis machine that I would say can simulate that serve and the angle and the speed Accurately. And so I was thinking, well, for any large tennis academies they're just having one dedicated cord for returns, which is again such an important point, because if you're not serving, every single point starts with a return. Yeah, it's an instrumental stroke to practice in order to excel in tennis and improve somebody's game.

Klara:

Yeah, yeah if you need more ideas, I'm here.

Adam:

Well, actually I think that's out loud because the release point for cricket is higher as well, because their arm is straight, I so it is a high release point. So we could probably use the same machine for tennis as we use for cricket, which is, you know, has a higher release point. So that's, maybe we can do it. We just need to help the database.

Klara:

Yes, I'll be happy testing too, yeah that would be fun. Yeah, and so going a little bit to your line app because another thing I was looking at your website. Obviously we talked about this product being for baseball, softball and cricket market, but you also have products for pitching.

Adam:

Yes.

Klara:

So tell us a little bit more about your whole portfolio of products.

Adam:

I'll touch the strikeout program Basically what that is. It's a video image of either a right hand or a left hand batter and a catcher, and what you do is there's a nice color touchscreen. You pick whatever location you want to throw to. When you throw into it, it records your hit, your misses, your base, your accuracy and also your velocity as well, and you'll see better images of both softball players and baseball players. So you either sport can use it, and also different age groups as well. So depending on how old you are, you can select those video images, which is kind of cool.

Adam:

We came out of that a few years ago and it sounds pretty good Definitely not as good as a hitting machines, but it's a nice. It's added a product to the product line that we offer. But in addition to that, we also have conversion kits for other manufacturers and pitching machines like the Hack Attack and the Iron Mike Both machines. There's thousands and thousands of machines out there and what we did? We came up with a video screen that goes in front of it, with a big computer system and everything synced up. So basically, there's a lot less money and you don't get a touch screen to select what pitch type you want, or speed or location, but it's a nice entry level machine for these batting keg is a training centers across the US, which is nice.

Klara:

Yeah, the problem is still adds a little bit of the visual component and hitters being able to train kind of the hand-dired coordination with the ball.

Adam:

Yeah, there's some of these machines out in the market that someone can get into it for like 8,000 or 15,000, which is a lot cheaper than the 27,000. And what some people do too is that they say you know what, if this one's only 8,000, I'll get two or three or four or five of them. And I had the whole facility with nice video screens and it's really a good look. I mean, we sold a lot of customers with multiple machines. I think it was like eight to one person, I think 11 to another person. So it's pretty cool to see all the video screens lined up. But the second part of that is if anyone wants to see more information on our machines, our website is probattercom and that has videos on it of what we can offer, has brochures, descriptions, pricing, all that stuff, our phone number's on there. Anyone's happy to help if anyone has any questions on any of the machines.

Klara:

Excellent, I'll make sure to add the information to the episode notes, that'd be great. I guess, as I'm talking to you and think about or we talked a little bit about all the craziness that's still happening in the world, covid isn't completely aware, though we all wish it was. And there's this economics ups and downs.

Adam:

Yeah.

Klara:

What would you want to inspire people to be doing more of or less of?

Adam:

More of, I would say do what makes you happy, whatever that is. I mean do whatever makes you happy, because one thing COVID taught us is that you never know. You never know if you're going to get it. I mean, luckily a lot of vaccinations are out, so if you get it it's a lot less severe. But tomorrow is never promised. So do whatever makes you happy and whatever you chose. Choose to do, just work hard at it and be the best you can at whatever you choose to do.

Klara:

It seems like that's a little bit of your motto, of what you all are trying to create, that pro batter sports.

Adam:

Yeah, you got to just stick with it, and sometimes it's not easy, but you got to work.

Klara:

Yeah, Any other things you would want to mention regarding pro batter sports and any call to action?

Adam:

Adam. If anyone wants to see the machine in action, probattercom and we're happy to send additional videos or pictures. We sold a lot of machines something years. In the 25 years we've been out there we still do major league baseball. We have about 25 machines in the professional level. A lot of the big name players have them either at their houses or local batting cages. A lot of top COD programs, which is those are tough markets to get into. So it obviously speaks highly of the machine and the training that it can offer.

Klara:

Yeah, I can imagine if even the pros are using it. I'm sure there is a reason for it.

Adam:

Yeah, and that's a tricky market to get into because some of the coaches hate pitching machines and there's also a lot of coaches at that level, so people can get live pitching. I mean, that's the biggest thing about live pitching Not everyone can get live pitching or someone to throw the ball to you. So that's why pitching machines are out there. And the major league level I mean people have got some major leagues by doing your teamwork or just soft toss, and some of those guys, I mean they're like well, if it's not broke, why fix it? So it's a tough level and there's also a lot of coaches that, well, some ego is there saying, basically, we don't need this, we don't need that. We have Austin's trainers and, trust me, I'm not stepping on your toes the some are great trainers, but a pitch machine is a nice addition to what you can offer training lines and that's what we believe.

Klara:

And I can totally imagine. I think ego is definitely the one that always comes up, whether we want to admit it or not, whether it's in sports or business and that's hard to swallow.

Adam:

Sometimes you've got to let the ego go. You can solve machines at a couple of major league parks and some batters are like, no, I don't want anything to do with this thing, and some just jump right in and they challenge themselves and they hit better and go faster in different breaking pitches and I think some of the guys that don't hit I mean some guys don't like pitch machines, some guys don't need them, but some guys I think they're just a little not afraid but they don't want to look bad in front of their peers. I guess that's not always the case, but in some cases maybe.

Klara:

Adam, how can people find you? What's the best way to reach out if anybody is interested in a conversation finding more about the product?

Adam:

ProBattercom and our phone number is 203-874-2500. And anyone that interested in the phone is happy to help. And my name again is Adam Battersby. If you call me or email me, easiest is info at probattercom. I'm happy to send more information and videos and all that good stuff.

Klara:

Sounds good. Thank you so much, adam, for the conversation and hopefully this will inspire you to the S as well.

Klara:

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