The Design
Our design began by identifying wheels as the most efficient ball throwing mechanism. Wheels can control ball spin, throw breaking pitches, provide accuracy, and deliver the much-needed speed. The true uniqueness to our machine is the use of a third wheel. The location of the three wheels visually opens the ball chute, allowing the hitter to see the ball through acceleration and release, providing complete vision and timing. By simply changing wheel speed, any breaking pitch could be instantly dialed in as the third wheel eliminated the need to pivot the throwing head when changing pitches. Accuracy, ball control and speed were also improved due to the increased amount of ball surface being captured. Additional benefits of the third wheel were a reduction of throwing wheel and ball wear.
Other important characteristics of the design were to incorporate safety features that kept the operator protected from moving parts. Ease of vertical and horizontal controls were also key for pitch location and fungo work. In addition, portability was a requirement, providing mobility on and off the field for ease of use, storage and transport.
Because of the features of the Hack Attack, major league coaches are now using a pitching machine not only all season in practices but also prior to games in warm-ups. They are frequently setting the machine to simulate the pitches their hitters will be facing that night. Even pinch hitters are hitting off of the machine just prior to being called up. With the validity of the timing element, even many coaches who avoided pitching machines all together in the past now include them as an important tool in their daily practice. Taking notice, teams at all levels are replacing existing machines with the new
Hack Attack.
For younger players and specific drills at all levels of competition, the Hack Attack was quickly followed by the Junior Hack Attack. It is equal in quality but designed for use at shorter distances. The Junior is perfect for use at home in backyard cages, little league practices, machine pitch games and travel ball.
Background on Pitching Machines
The first arm machines that were used were unguarded, leading to some very tragic accidents. Arm machines then needed to be heavily guarded, limiting the vision advantage. Due to the enormous recoil generated by the arm, the machines also had to be bolted to concrete pads, making them stationery and not available for field or fungo work. Even today arm machines remain bulky and massive. The strengths of this design were some level of vision and timing. The weaknesses were that it was limited to only fastballs, completely immobile and still carried a concern for safety.
The innovators of the wheel machines saw the ability to throw curve balls as the ultimate feature in pitching machines. While the initial wheel machines threw curve balls, they ignored the need for portability and for guarding throwing wheels. Slowly improvements were made to introduce some portability and fungo capabilities but essentially the basic design has stayed the same. The strength of these units was certainly the curve ball, although they required awkward and time-consuming adjustments in order to change the type of pitch. One of the major deficiencies was the lack of the all-important vision and timing feature. This meant that wheel driven pitching machines at the higher levels of play were frequently considered just pre-season or off-season tools, avoided during the season because it was felt they affected a hitter’s sense of timing. Following the two-wheel machines, the disc machine was introduced. It provided some vision and timing along with the ability to do effective fungo work. For this it sacrificed breaking pitches, a huge deficiency. We concluded that the ultimate pitching machine should be accurate, have adequate velocity, throw breaking pitches, have fungo capabilities, be portable and above all, provide the all-important vision and timing.
