Batter-up

Batter-up is a new batting cage opened in Farlington Fields. Offers baseball, softball and cricket bowling. Anna runs the cages and offers coaching.

Transcript

00:00Baseball is traditionally known as America's favourite pastime, but it's not commonly seen

00:09played in Portsmouth. But I'm here in Farlington to meet Anna, who runs Batter Up, Portsmouth's

00:14first ever batting cage. She's going to tell me all about it and show me the ropes.

00:18I started this, the concept, last summer. Actually, well, that's a lie. The concept

00:23has been running for many years. I've just never really, you know, taken the plunge and done it.

00:29But yeah, I got this up and running officially in March, middle of March, but started the

00:35equipment prep and planning last year. Okay, and obviously it's a kind of batting cage,

00:40so it's a baseball, softball, and you can do cricket as well? Yeah, yeah, baseball, softball,

00:44and cricket. So the machine you're looking at now is currently set up for baseball,

00:48but what I can do is change the legs so it brings it lower. Then we can use it for softball pitching,

00:52you adjust the elevation, adjust the speed. We can do slow pitch, fast pitch,

00:57baseball, and then I've got a separate machine that does cricket. So this is actually designed

01:02for anyone. Like, if you've never played before, that's fine. We've got machines such as the pop-up,

01:07which will help you get the mechanics of the swing, get used to like the batter's boxes, home plate,

01:15how the ball's going to come at you. Then we've got the machines that we can move you up to.

01:18If you're completely new, we've got training balls, which are a lot softer. It's the same

01:24same kind of specifications as regular balls, but they're a lot softer. So they're not going to

01:28hurt you if you do, you know, get caught with one. And then it's for teams who play. I have a lot of

01:35teams from the Solent League who come down and train before tournaments. I have great British fast pitch

01:42teams coming down, players prepping, ready for their tournaments abroad.

01:46Okay. Can anyone come down and book it online?

01:50Yeah, so it's online. My website is batter-up.co.uk. You can find me there. You can find me on Facebook

02:00and you can send me a message. I've hooked my WhatsApp app to all of it. So, you know, if you're not sure or

02:05if you're interested, just send me a message. I'll give you everything you need to know. I've had kids

02:09down here. Kids absolutely love it. They're addicted. I'm about to give it a go now. So yeah,

02:15any pointers? Yeah, definitely. So I'll show you the mechanics of the swing. The main thing

02:20you need to do is have a strong stance. You need to load up your back leg. And with baseball, you need

02:27to make sure your rear arm is tucked in because if you start bringing your arms out to swing, you're

02:32losing a lot of your power. So what you want to do is whip and you want to come onto it straight. And

02:38that's where they bring your hips into it. It will give you the power. So left foot forward. So left

02:43hand at the bottom on the grip. And then if you point your index fingers out, they should be pointing

02:49in the same direction. So if you line your knuckles up, as in they should be pointing forward. So what

02:54you want is your, yeah, yeah, yeah. Nice. It's a natural.

03:15So just finished up a batter up with Anna. I had a fantastic time. It's actually,

03:19so not something I thought about doing before, but yeah, really, really good fun,

03:23really welcoming, really sociable. I can imagine it being a really good, good sociable event.

03:27Knacking me out more than I thought it was going to. I've probably got four or five pitches in,

03:30hitting it. My arm started hurting. I started falling out of it, but it was really actually

03:35a good workout and quite therapeutic. I can imagine coming down here at the end of the day and just

03:38hitting some balls, forgetting about the worries of the day. So yeah, I definitely recommend

03:42anyone coming down to give it a try. It's fantastic.