Batting cages are not cool. You don’t ask your friends out as 20-somethings by saying ”Hey guys let’s go eat, drink, and take some swings at the local indoor cages!”. You just don’t. Especially because every friend group isn’t made up of solely baseball players.
Unless you do something like this. This is sick and I’d love to try this some day, but this would only be appealing to a group of baseball/softball people, and that’s not the point of this blog.
But because not every group of friends is made up of ball players, you do things like mini-golf, maybe go to an arcade where you and your boys post up at the pop-a-shot with a drink on the side, or probably the most common in the last few years: Top Golf.
Top Golf is fantastic. It’s fun, competitive, outdoorsy but still within a bar/lounge setting, and the greatest part about it is that you don’t have to be into golf or an avid player to have fun with it. It’s a great date spot, but also an awesome place to hang with your friends and wack golfballs as far as you possibly can with no regard for actual points (although the precision based game modes are also competitive and fun).
For years since Top Golf came to New Jersey, I’d talk with my friends saying we need something like this, but baseball-related. Like a similar concept where there’s either a ball on a tee or some automatic soft toss where we just launch balls into the back net or even into specific targets, just like top golf.
And for any company that’s reading, here’s a blueprint to a automatic soft-toss machine:
Yes. That’s me. At least it would be me if we could actually manifest what I’m talking about.
PSA to companies out there that want to capitalize: Take this model, manufacture it out of actual adult strength-rated materials, stuff it with actual baseballs, and sell it to stadiums.
Take Citi Fields annual Stadium Links event as an example. What a great idea by Citi Field and this “Stadium Links” group. It’s freaking cool. But you know what would be cooler, Mets fans and baseball fans alike? Launching baseballs all over the field at real MLB parks.
Imagine being on a soft toss machine (like the one pictured above), and smashing absolute taters into the Big Apple, launching baseballs into the upper deck and the Coca-Cola Corner, possibly even hitting the JumboTron? Going to Wrigley Field and hitting one out onto Waveland? Playing pepper with the Green Monster in Fenway? Hitting one into the giant glove in San Francisco? The possibilities are endless!
And it’s not like these baseballs hitting stadium landmarks would be a liability. During the actual season there’s always the occupational hazard of damaging stadium property with baseballs going in and out of play. It’s posted all over the stadium. So that shouldn’t be an issue.
One day I want to live in a world where “Top Toss Baseball” is available.
The Three Spot 