Sports Product Review

In sports and in life, confidence is everything. On the playing field, it’s a constant battle waged in the mind. Every athlete faces fear. Am I good enough? Am I prepared? What if something goes wrong?

Perhaps the most insidious fear that athletes face is the fear of injury. Elite athletes may have trained themselves to overcome the fear of pain associated with their sport, but they dread an injury that will sideline them and potentially eliminate their livelihood. Younger players often don’t think in these broad terms, but rather simply worry about getting hurt for the most basic reason – because it hurts.

In either case, players who take the field with even the slightest worry or doubt are setting themselves up for not only failure, but also greater potential for harm. That’s one of the reasons we’re such huge fans of the XProTex line of gloves, (www.xprotex.com).

They sent us some gloves to try. The “wow” factor alone when they come out of the package is enough reason to put these high up on any player’s gift wish list. But it’s when the action starts that they truly shine.

The Reaktr infielder’s glove covers the hand inside the mitt and protects the wrist, palm and fingers from hard throws and short-hop bounces. It’s tough catching a hard throw from a teammate and, in that instant before it hits the mitt, if a players senses impending pain, any flinch might cause him to miss. At the very least, a lack of aggressiveness coming to get the ball could be the difference between safe and out on a bang-bang play.

My son, who is a shortstop, says he loves the way the glove protects his wrist from getting dinged up on bad hops. It helps him focus more on doing whatever it takes to make the play, to get in front of a ball that’s smoked, and worry less about the consequences if the ball doesn’t do what he expects it to.

XProTex gloves are among the most innovative new products to come along in the baseball world in some time, and help athletes step onto the field knowing they’re prepared and protected. And a player with the utmost confidence is sure to have the utmost success.

Source: XProTex

It was awful. This past weekend, I was watching my teenage sons’ summer ball double-header at a high school field. They were playing on the JV field, which had a short, chain-link fence in the outfield. No warning track, no padding. I was out behind the center-field fence and a drive was hit in my direction. It looked to me, and apparently to the center-fielder, that it was catchable. He got a great jump, tracked it like he should and then, BOOM! Full-speed he ran face-first into the fence post as the ball went over. He collapsed on the field and for a moment I feared he was unconscious – or worse. Fortunately, after about fifteen minutes he did get up and was carted off the field. He appeared to be shaken, but all right.

That field isn’t safe. The fence is too short for high-school age kids, there is no warning track, but worst of all, no padding. That’s where a company like Promats Athletics (www.promatsathletics.com) comes in. Promats provides a wide variety of products designed to pad or protect chain link fence top rails, horizontal mid and bottom rails, as well as the vertical posts. That would have come in handy last weekend.

Promats does interior padding as well. They just finished the new indoor basketball practice facility at Indiana University, (my alma-mater). I was back in Bloomington a few weeks ago for my niece’s wedding. I took a tour of the place and its awesome. You can see what it looks like here. 

So, whether you are looking to pad these dangerous rails and posts, or simply protect against the fence mesh extending above the top rail, or need protection against the walls in your gym, ask the experts at Promats. They’ve have it covered.

Source: Promats


It looks great, feels even better, but oh my goodness, how it hits. Splitrock Bats (www.splitrockbats.com) may make you think twice about ever swinging aluminum again.

They sent us two birch models to try: The 110 shown here, and the JH9, which we’ll get to in a subsequent review. It would be hyperbole to say any wood bat hits with the same “pop” as aluminum, but my son, who is playing in a wood bat summer league, says this is as close as he’s ever felt.

For sixteen years, Splitrock has been a leading provider of lumber to the minor leagues. And I can see why. While watching my son’s double-header last weekend I noticed the way the other kids on the team coveted his bat. He’d get on base and the on-deck batter would retrieve the 110 and, inevitably, look at it, even half-swing it on the way back to the dugout. Maybe I was just paying closer attention, but I saw more players looking at the label of this bat than all the other kids’ bats combined.

There’s a lot of good wood out there and it would be impossible to say any make or model is definitively “the best.” But based on the feedback from one 18 year-old wood bat “expert,” I can say if you get yourself a Splitrock, you’re going to love everything about it.

Source: Splitrock Bats

Several years ago, a boy on a Little League team I was coaching had his 12 year-old season end prematurely when he squared to bunt and took an inside pitch off the wrist. We knew by the way it swelled up that it was probably broken. When I called his parents that evening it was the worst news possible: Broken bone, in a cast for 4-6 weeks – out for the season.

I can say with 99% assurance, it wouldn’t have happened if he’d been wearing Hammr batting gloves, made by a fantastic up-and-coming company in the baseball world, XProTex, (www.xprotex.com).

The Hammr offers both wrist and hand protection for batters. They’re designed to help protect the small bones in the hand and in the wrist that are most vulnerable to injury from a pitched ball. The gloves boast Advanced Impact Composite (AIC) protection on the outside of the hand and wrist. AIC is a flexible, yet impact-absorbing intelligent material conceived through 30 months of development and testing.

XProTex sent us a pair to try out and you can tell just by touching the AIC protection that nothing that hits this is going to hurt. The XProTex website says that the impact load generated by a 100 MPH ball is reduced to the equivalent of being struck with a 40 MPH ball. And how many of us face 100 MPH fastballs? Even if you have never been hit on the wrist by a pitch, the self-assurance these gloves give hitters is phenomenal. I have seen my son attack more inside pitches because in the back of his mind he knows he has nothing to worry about. That additional confidence alone is worth the price of the gloves.

We have nothing to fear but fear itself? How about that pitch running up an in at the hands? Get yourself a pair of XProTex gloves and now, instead of bailing out, you can “Hammr” it.

Source: XProTex

So here’s the deal: You’re a baseball/softball dad and you want your son/daughter to get more swings in. But you, not being independently wealthy and retired, don’t have the time to throw batting practice, nor can you afford to send them to the local batting cage every day at $50/hour. You’ve set up a tee in the garage but, judging by the dust it’s accumulated, the last time they hit off the tee was when they were actually playing Tee-ball. What’s the answer?

The Backyard Batter, (www.backyardbatter.com) is a unique, cool and, most of all, fun training tool that will ensure they’re hitting even if you’re at the office. The main reason kids often don’t practice on their own is that practice is usually boring. No one likes to hit a stationary ball off a tee, pick it up, and hit it again. But put a little movement on the ball, make it more of a challenge, and they’ll be out there until you call them in for dinner.

The Backyard Batter is a simple mechanism that drops balls, one after another, onto a small trampoline. Players learn to time the bounce and hit the ball on its way up, similar to a coach throwing soft-toss. The big advantages to this method are that there is enough time for small kids to watch and swing, and they know when the ball is coming. You can adjust the height and arch of the pitch as well as the time interval. The Backyard Batter will work with softballs, baseballs and tennis balls, and operates on AC or a 6 VDC rechargeable battery.

The Backyard Batter is lightweight, tough, and durable. It fits in an optional 4-1/2 foot bag so you can take it to the field for the whole team to use. Imagine having a hitting station like this one, without having to waste a coach just sitting on a bucket tossing. It assembles using only two wing nuts and two pins. When you’re done, you need only take in the trampoline and the ball rack to break it down.

Whether they play T-Ball, Little League, High School, Slow or Fast Pitch, the Backyard Batter will teach your child to hit, to train muscle memory through repetition and to improve their swing. It takes time to be a better hitter.  That time needs to be fun, safe and provide a sense of accomplishment. The Backyard Batter is the tool for the job.

Source: Backyard Batter