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Product Review - Hit-N-Stik Self Trainer
by Dave
Thursday, April 27, 2006
One of my favorite softball training products is the Hit-N-Stik, a long, flexible wand with a plastic ball at the end of it which is very useful for teaching batters proper mechanics while providing more control and repetition than other kinds of devices. Hit-N-Stik is sold by Fort Collins, Colorado based, family-owned Donik Sports, Inc. The device is held by a coach who places the ball-end in front of a hitter who then swings away, making contact with the ball. It provides the coach with the opportunity to view the hitter's swing up close and personal while also permitting him or her to place the ball in various locations, inside and out, high and low. Hitting the stick provides a realistic training experience while cutting down the need to gather up a bunch of balls hit, for example, off the standard batting tee. Batters can get a lot of repetitions very quickly. Many travel teams use the Hit-N-Stik not only as a practice station but also as a quick, easy way to warm-up before games. Donik Sports offers what they call a "Self Trainer" which holds the Hit-N-Stik in place on a device which springs when hit. I decided to purchase one to see if it is worth the money.
Probably the most positive aspect to Donik's "self-trainer" is the ability to get many rapid repetitions when there are few coaches around. Whereas the Hit-N-Stik requires a coach to hold the stick (preferably an adult), the "self-trainer" can be used by the batter alone, although it is probably not advisable to allow young girls to use it completely unsupervised. The device is easily assembled in just a minute or two and can be broken down, thrown in the car trunk, and set up quickly at your practices.
The "self-trainer" appears to be well made. It is somewhat heavy and apparently quite sturdy. All the parts look to be manufactured well and I suspect the sticks will break long before the stand. Despite its weight, large ground stakes or heavy sand bags are necessary to hold it in place because the base moves a few inches when the ball is hit. Repeated drills will cause it to shift all over the place if left unanchored.
There is a spring-action which allows the stick to rotate as the ball is hit but that rotation is limited to about a half circle. Care should be taken to not allow girls waiting their turns to stand anywhere near the device or batter but that's true of all hitting training devices. If you watch TV commercials for similar devices, you get the impression of a device which mimics pitching as the hitting wand rotates away when hit and then springs back towards the batter. This aspect to the Hit-N-Stik self trainer is a false one. Because the device rotates only about a half circle, it recoils back to the hitter long before she can recoil her body back into proper hitting stance. I suppose a batter could recoil rapidly but this is not the sort of training you want to use when teaching hitting mechanics. The self-trainer is more like a batting tee where you don't have to retrieve balls.
One negative aspect of the self-trainer has more to do with the Hit-N-Stik than it does with the base per se. The Hit-N-Stik is a flexible wand which gives way when the ball is hit. When it is held by a coach, the flex action of the stick is mitigated when a coach allows the stick to fly away and then he brings it back in front of the hitter. When the stick is placed on the stand, it tends to wobble after being hit. A hitter takes up her position, then swings away, the wand rotates a half circle or less, then recoils. But the hitter must wait for the spring action to stop moving back and forwards, and, more importantly, must wait for the wand to stop bouncing up and down.
The height of the device can be adjusted to one of several positions making it "easy" to work on high or low pitches, as you desire. But at least when new, the adjustment mechanism is not easy to operate. A 12 year old would most likely not have the hand and finger strength to make adjustments. I think the fact that it is adjustable at all makes it useful and the fact that there are so many different heights is definitely a plus. But the inability for the hitter herself to make the adjustment limits my praise for this aspect of the product.
There are two keys on the device which apparently hold the spring in place. I say apparently because there is no explanation anywhere in accompanying literature as to what they are for. I tried removing one and then both only to discover that their removal allows the wand to rotate unimpeded without any spring action. There is apparently no reason to remove these though they are removed more easily than the height adjustment mechanism is operated.
Finally, I never noticed before making my purchase, but the self-trainer is listed as appropriate for ages 12 and under. I guess girls over this age swing too hard for the design but I really don't know.
I don't remember what I expected when I shelved out nearly three hundred bucks, including shipping, for this apparatus. I think I pictured a device which would mimic pitching when it recoiled, could be used without any supervision, and would provide a good training alternative to tee hitting. I never thought it would require significant anchoring and I never thought the wand would vibrate after being hit. But I should have foreseen this before I made my purchase. I suppose it does what one would reasonably expect it to do and it is well-made, not to mention easily assembled. I just don't think it is the best use of your or my money.
Permanent Link: Product Review - Hit-N-Stik Self Trainer
 
Pitchers Rising
by Dave
Monday, April 24, 2006
Rest assured, regardless of what you may read here and there, that riseball you struck out on was actually rising as you whiffed at it. Scientists and engineers are fond of laughing at those of us who describe the rising action of a baseball four-seamer or the softball version, the riseball. They confidently tell us that the force of gravity would never permit a thrown ball to rise. But they are forgetting two very important pieces to the puzzle, release point and trajectory. Before I explain this any further, allow me to admit that I got a "C" in high school physics. I do not remember everything about vector math but I can tell you one thing for certain. The softball riseball, if not the four seam fastball, does very much rise. How can I state such complete apostasy and call myself an educated person? Well, consider that a softball pitcher releases the ball about 1 to 2 feet from the ground and a riseball typically crosses the plate about 4 or so feet above the ground. Therefore, the riseball has indeed risen.
Most recently you may have read LiveScience's article "Busting Baseball Myths" which pointed out the obvious effects of the force of gravity. LiveScience.com says, "When a hitter swings under the ball and misses, baseball announcers sometimes say the pitcher got him with a "rising fastball." But technically, this pitch cannot exist if thrown overhand -- it's impossible for a pitch thrown downward to buck gravity and achieve upward lift. The rising fastball deceives the hitter in almost the opposite way a good curve does. A 90-mph fastball will drop significantly less than one thrown at 80 mph. So instead of dropping a few inches in the last few feet, a fastball with some serious zip will maintain a nearly straight trajectory. If he (the batter) thinks it's an 80-mph fastball, but it's really 90 mph, since it didn't drop it will appear to rise in that last instant. It looks like it hops up, and that's the illusion of a rising fastball."
I used to have a large poster in my bedroom of a major league pitcher throwing a hard fastball. This particular pitcher got so low when he threw that his knee touched the ground - you could see his knee on the ground as he released the ball. I would estimate that when he released the ball, his hand was about 3 to 4 feet off the ground. His "rising fastball" ideally would cross the plate at about 4 to 6 feet where batters would merely waive at it. The pitch didn't drop an inch and probably arrived at a higher point relative to the Earth than it left his hand. But that's baseball. Let's discuss softball.
Wikipedia says, "A riseball is a pitch thrown by a pitcher in fastpitch softball. Upon release by the pitcher, the ball has backspin. The backspin on the ball affects the flight of the ball toward the batter. To a batter, the ball appears to "rise." Although called a riseball, a riseball does not, in fact, rise. The softball simply falls less than expected. e.g., over the 40 foot distance from the pitcher to the batter, a softball thrown horizontally at a speed of 50 miles per hour would be expected to drop about 48 inches. If sufficient backspin is put on the ball by the pitcher, the amount of drop over the same distance is reduced by about 12 inches."
The common myth busting wisdom tells us that a ball thrown straight, parallel to the ground, will drop at a rate determined by the force of gravity. Gravity is a force, not a speed. The force of gravity causes two objects to move towards each other at a particular rate of acceleration. The gravity between Earth and a softball is fixed at 32 feet per second per second. The Earth, being a sort of very big softball, does not move. So the entire acceleration is accomplished by the movement of the softball. A thrown softball accelerates towards the ground at the rate of 32 feet per second per second. It takes about a half second for a pitched softball to reach homeplate. So the ball has reached 16 feet per second of downward speed at the end of that half second. The average downward speed over that time period is 8 feet per second over a half second. For this reason, a pitch would drop about 4 feet over the about 35 feet (no softball pitcher releases the ball from 40 feet) between release point and homeplate. The experts say the backspin the pitcher puts on the ball counteracts some gravity temporarily causing the pitch to drop only 12 inches rather than the 48 it would otherwise have dropped. That's just plain stupid.
When is the last time you stood in the on-deck circle watching a pitcher release the pitch more than 3 or 4 feet above the ground. Maybe in baseball that happens but in softball, the ball is released very close to the ground. If the ball is actually falling 3 or 4 feet during it's flight, there would be no such thing as a strike. Everything would be in the dirt. But pitching or throwing any ball involves making an adjustment with your release angle in order to compensate for gravity. The trajectory of a pitched softball is upwards.
Pitchers release the ball 1 or 2 feet above the ground and need to have it reach the plate at about 2 to 5 feet above the ground. So, really, if you want to be technically accurate, just about every pitch you see in a softball game rises! The real bottom line in all this mumbo jumbo is, the trajectory of the ball's flight.
Here's an experiment for all those guys and gals who never hit against a riseball pitcher: get a really good pitcher and have her throw some rises for you. If you don't trust your eyes, get a digital video camera and place some measuring sticks within view. Put one in front of the plate, one at the plate and one in back. Now film several instances of riseballs and head back to the computer to verify whether or not the ball is higher after you swing than before. If you chart the height of the ball from about 5 feet in front of homeplate to the catcher's mitt, the ball would be higher at the end point. That's what causes a batter to swing and miss and that's the only rise that is relevant to the frustrated strikeout victim.
The next time you are at a family BBQ and are interrupted telling a softball story by your uncle, the engineer, who tells you it is is physically impossible for any pitcher to throw a "riseball," take him into the yard, throw him a pop-up and ask him if the ball did any rising during its flight. Now have him stand on a table and you get down on one knee. Throw a hard one at his head and again ask if the ball rose. Now, whenever you hear an engineer or scientist tell you that a riseball doesn't rise, you can laugh at their foolishness, knowing they're wrong because they failed to take everything into account.
Permanent Link: Pitchers Rising
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