9er Baseball & Sports Performance Opens in Somers
If you’re a local baseball/softball player of any age, your Christmas/New Year’s wish list might have included a new Easton Mako Beast or a Wilson A2000 glove, but if those things didn’t show up under the tree or weren’t among your Hanukah gifts, we may have a fallback plan that can still get you ready for the upcoming spring season.
How about a joint where your baseball/softball swings were mechanically measured and your timing was accurately depicted in a manner the region is yet to experience. Too good to be true, right? Well, up until January of 2017, this type of virtual reality did not exist for baseball players in and about the Northern Westchester/Putnam County region.
But Mahopac’s Teddy Lawrence, a former MLB draft choice of the Detroit Tigers, and his son, Brooks, plus Putnam Valley’s Joe Kesselmark (an LA Dodgers draft pick) and Pat Ahearne (a former Detroit Tigers pitcher) took baseball technology to the next level at their new simulated sandlot in Somers, NY, in the Somers Sports Arena at 245 Route 100 (right by Froggy’s Deli).
HitTrax – the world’s first ‘Batting Simulator’ – will be presented to the area at the new hot spot and training facility: 9er Baseball & Sports Performance. The facility will cater to the hitting whims of every baseball/softball player throughout the region. In addition to the HitTrax simulator, Brooks Lawrence will offer personal training and fitness while a trained and certified baseball staff – featuring MLB draftees Teddy Lawrence, Kesselmark and Ahearne — refines your stroke, trains pitchers and offers competitive opportunities for local baseball/softball programs at affordable prices.
The concept behind HitTrax is to “go beyond the cage”. While batting cages offer a degree of refinement to one’s swing, you never know where the ball would go in a live session. HitTrax, and the 17-foot high batting tunnels, at 9er Baseball is designed to show participants where the ball would travel, exactly or virtually (using a distance boost feature), in major league parks across the country. It’s a powerful combination of analytics and entertainment that is rare among regional indoor facilities, but will now be featured right here in our back yards in Northern Westchester.
The design offers tournaments, home run derby’s and leagues, whereby local teams of all ages – from Little League to high school and college – can train individually or compete against each other in closely monitored leagues with actual stats, trends, progressions and league standings.
In league play: the gaming component allows Team A’s pitching staff to ‘Live Pitch’ to Team B’s opposing batters, thus creating a virtual battle that engages participants from the minute they arrive to the minute they leave. HitTrax combines technology and reality like nothing previously has, and local coaches now have access that enables them to keep their players sharp throughout the long winter months, thus getting them prepared for the short high school season and long summer campaigns.
The concept enhances sportsmanship as well: Participants aren’t just waiting their turn in the cage; they’re openly rooting for their teammates to mash while opponents await their turn to strategize a winning formula. With HitTrax, players are further engaged, and in-depth performance reports are quickly generated for coaches to assess and pinpoint improvement. Trainees receive instant feedback on their strengths and weaknesses. (HitTrax StatsCenter is a private online portal that puts HitTrax data at the fingertips of the player, coach and facility administrators).
9er Baseball intends to help players improve upon those weaknesses, too, implementing a staff of coaches and trainers designed to measure players’ kinetics and take them to the next level by determining: Exit Ball Velocity; Distance of Hit; Launch Angle/Elevation; Batting Average; Hard Hit Average; % of Line Drives/Fly Balls/Ground Balls; SLG and OPS; Spray Charts; Strike Zone Analysis and Performance Trends.
On the other side, pitching coaches like Ahearne will determine: Pitch Velocity; Late Break Measurement; Pitch Location; % Strikes; % of Line Drives/Fly Balls/Ground Balls; Spray Charts; Batting Average Against; Analysis by Pitch Type; Strike Zone Analysis and Performance Trends.
“We are all things baseball,” Teddy Lawrence said, “from performance enhancement to sportsmanship. We have three former pro ballplayers on staff, which is unquestionably to our advantage and to the players we are training and developing. We want the best for all of them and for baseball in this region, but it’s more than just baseball. We have Sport Performance Coaches who are ‘Bigger, Faster, Stronger, Certified Coaches’ and each has played sports at the college level.”
The facility, which is available for booking all day on Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays, and after 1:00 p.m. on Sundays, features four hitting tunnels (three that go 65-foot in length, 17 feet high, 12 feet wide; another 40-footer x 15′ wide x 17′ high tunnel.) with observation decks for coaches and onlookers and also includes a full kitchen for youth parties. It also contains a state-of-the-art weight room, a sauna and in ice bath.
Email for info at info@9erbaseballny.com or call 914-276-5035 or just stop by for a tour of the facility when open. Visit them at www.9erbaseballny.com for more information and booking.
Ray has 33 years experience covering and photographing local sports in Westchester and Putnam counties, including everything from Little League/Travel Baseball to varsity high school prep sports and collegiate coverage. He has been a sports editor at Examiner Media since its inception in 2007.
Visit Ray’s author bio page for more details. Also read Ray’s archived work here and his Direct Rays column here.
