I like the personal pitching machine but i can only comment on its performance indoors. I have a long master suite and we set it up about 20 feet away from my 7 year old and he gets great hitting practice. The key to this machine is to use quality golf whiffle balls, the ones from walmart don't work at all. Good quality balls will cost $3-$5 dozen but are worth it. The price of the machine seems to keep falling and for just over $100, you cant go wrong.
Pros:
Affordable
Great for hand eye coordination
Curve balls have different settings
Adjustable speed
Cons:
Balls do get jammed it seems every time we use it. I just stand behind it and unjam it.
Takes a while to dial it in to get good pitches. we have gotten good at this over time.
For us, it works great inside. we live in a hot windy climate and wouldn't be great for us outside.
Swing Smarter Response: We agree wholeheartedly with you vegaschris, glad to hear you have your 7-year-old already working on this machine. Your little hitter will be that more ahead of the game...you may also want to try putting "Big League Eyes" on the golf whiffles, check out the review we did on them here.
Swing Smarter!
Jun 14, 2009 Rating
Personal Pitcher by: Lesterclan
I purchased the Personal Pitcher several years ago and I would recommend it. Here are my Pros/Cons: Pros: 1. Does what it is suppose to do. Hitting golf ball sized wiffle balls is an awesome drill (especially if you use a small diameter bat...Personal Pitcher sells the Grobat, but you can use any small diameter bat). 2. Relatively inexpensive. I purchased the Pro model which pitches curve balls, but I have never used the curve ball function. I live in Florida and use the machine outside and when its windy, it curves on its own (a lot...this will be listed in the Cons section). If I were to buy again, I'd get the basic unit...it's cheaper. 3. Very light weight and easy to set up and use. You'll want to get the tripod as well, but altogether it is simple to use and set up.
Cons: 1. Tends to break down easy. I've had to replace the wheels twice. 2. The golf balls tend to get stuck in the auto feeder requiring someone to stand by and unclog it(I stopped using the auto feeder altogether and just dropped the balls in one at a time like a pitching machine). 3. If used outside, very suceptable to the wind. This is not necessarily a bad thing since the ball is not groved in the same spot. It tends to make it more game-like since the hitter doesn't know where the pitch will be. However, if it's really windy, don't use it outside.
There are other similar products on the market, but I haven't used them so I can not comment on them (I would be interested in a comparison of the different wiffle ball machines...?). I hope this helps.
[Note from Swing Smarter @Lesterclan: awesome review! I know this will help others when deciding on this machine, I thank you very much for your contribution to Swing Smarter Baseball!]
