The ProBatter II at Adventure Zone in West El Paso offers the perfect simulation, the perfect place for young hitters to form their skills, for more polished hitters to hone their skills and simply for old timers and hackers alike to have some fun.

Swing away.

"We've had it since March," said Adventure Zone president J.R. Phillips. "It's been a pretty popular item. A couple of Diablos players have come out. The UTEP softball team came out. A bunch of kids from Franklin High School have been out. We were looking at adding batting cages and we saw this at an amusement park show -- first in Orlando, then in Atlanta. It looks real and it works."

The left-handed pitcher in the video bears a resemblance to Tom Glavine. There also is a right-handed pitcher. And there also is a softball pitcher. You see the video screen. You see the windup, the pitching motion and the ball shoots through a hole in the screen -- smack at the pitcher's release point. It is as close to the real deal as you can get.

"A regular pitching machine messes up your timing," Phillips said. "It grooves your swing, but messes with your timing. This machine helps with both. The baseball can go up to 100 miles-an-hour and the softball can be cranked up to 80 miles-an-hour. You can go with a left-handed pitcher or a right-handed pitcher. You can adjust the speed, raise or lower the pitch. We put the system in last spring and added an air conditioned dog house back there for the computers."

Numerous major league teams have added the machine to their spring training regimen -- the New York Yankees, Boston Red Sox, Chicago White Sox and Cleveland Indians, to name a few. The machine has beenwritten about in major national publications.

Oakland's Milton Bradley told the company's Web site, Probatter.com, "It's a pretty neat invention."

And Boston's Trot Nixon told the Web site, "I find the ProBatter to be a good simulation of game-type pitching."

Phillips said they had a few problems with the projection of the screen during the day in the early going. But they added green wind screens, similar to those around a tennis court, and the screen is clearly and easily visible during the daylight hours.

And at night?

"People driving down Redd Road can see the pitcher on the mound," Phillips said.

The batter in the cage hasplenty of time between pitches, plenty of time to get ready and you always know when the next pitch is coming. The pitcher goes into the windup and ...

"People talk about eye switch, from the ball in the hand to the ball coming toward you," Phillips said. "This will give you the view you need."

Adventure Zone, of course,offers go-carts and bumper boats and miniature golf and scores of video games.

Laughing, Phillips said, "These batting cages ... this is the biggest video game in town -- but it'sreal."

Bill Knight may be reached at bknight@elpasotimes.com; 546-6171.