Personal Pitcher Review

I Love This Machine!

Recently I've been using the Personal Pitcher Pro pitching machine to test out and review. The Personal Pitcher is a small pitching machine that throws miniature golf ball sized wiffle or "poly" balls. I must admit right off the bat, that I absolutely love this thing! Above all else, it's fun...plain and simple.

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Personal Pitcher

The guys at Sports Product Consultants (SPC) agreed to send me one of their machines to test out and review, so here goes. Just to give you a background, SPC was developed by a man named Bob Richard who is the father of Chris Richard, a professional ballplayer. I owned a previous model of the Personal Pitcher several years ago, and have always been a fan of their product. Their current "Pro" model is pretty impressive and they have made many improvements to their machine over the years.

Disclaimer: I was not paid to give this review. Any opinions I share here are strictly my own.

Features

The Personal Pitcher weighs about 5 lbs, and can sit on any camera tripod. It uses a 4 hour rechargeable battery so it is portable and can be run without an extension cord. There are a set of switches on the side so you can toggle the pitch settings. It also features what they call their Pitch Indicator Light, that brightens as the ball is being loaded and dims right before the pitch is thrown.

Personal Pitcher

Probably the thing I like about it the most is that it throws the balls fairly hard for such a little machine. There are four speed settings that are adjustable by the switches on the side. The settings are 55 mph, 45 mph, 35 mph, and a soft toss setting of 25 mph. The Pro model features the ability to throw sliders and curveballs as well, which is nice. The Standard model does not include these options.

Minor Gripes

As I said, I love the Personal Pitcher Pro. In addition to being an outstanding and affordable hitting aid, it's just downright fun to use. Ever since SPC sent it to me, I've used it about every chance I can get. There are really only 2 criticisms I can give this machine.

First of all, occasionally it does spit out an inaccurate pitch here and there, but that's just the nature of the beast when you're dealing with lightweight balls and a lightweight piece of machinery. (Especially for under $200!) Besides, the occasional inconsistency of pitch location helps keep you on your toes as a batter, and I believe creates a bit more of a life-like batting practice session. It also does occasionally spit out what I call a "change-up," even at the 55 mph setting. Once again, another way to keep you on your toes.

The only other criticism I can possibly think of is that the balls do sometimes get blocked up on top of the machine and you have to go re-shuffle them to get the feeder going again. Once again, a minor inconvenience compared to the benefits of the machine.

Pitch Indicator Light

The Pitch Indicator Light is nice. It does help with timing, even though I still think you should use this machine with the idea of hitting from a "pre-loaded" swing position. The light however, does give you a clue as to when to get loaded so you're not standing there guessing when to get ready like an idiot. It is bright enough to be noticeable in the middle of sunny afternoon.

Battery

I also decided to give the battery a test. I let it charge overnight and tested it out the next morning to see if it really would last the whole 4 hours. I set the machine about 4 1/2 ft high on a tripod, and shot out a ball every hour on the hour. The first ball went 46ft. After 1 hour...47 ft, after 2 hours...45 ft, after 3 hours...41 ft, and by hour 4 it went only 21 ft. So as you can tell, the battery does last 4 hours, but probably has a usable life of about 3 1/2 hours. Still...not bad for a little piece of machinery under $200.

Curveballs and Sliders

The slider and curveball settings are pretty cool too. Yes, this little thing does actually throw a pretty nice little hook. The slider setting doesn't break all that much, but neither does a real slider now does it? The curveball setting definitely has a noticeable break to it. When using the curveball or slider setting, it does usually require you to move the tripod a little closer to the plate and reposition it since one of the wheels isn't spinning as fast as the other. Especially the curveball setting. Once again, a minor inconvenience to me. Others may feel differently.

Price

SPC sells the Personal Pitcher on their website. At this time (March 2010), the Standard model (no curveballs or sliders) sells for $129, and the Pro model sells for $149. They also sell package deals with some of their other products. You've read my review, you know what you're getting. If you've got a couple hundred bucks to spend on a hitting aid, I have no problems whatsoever recommending the Personal Pitcher. Have fun, and leave your reviews if you got them!

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