Westport man wins patent for pitching simulator

April 23, 2004

What started as an experiment by a Norwalk attorney to improve his son's batting swing has developed into a business that produces video batting simulators used by major league baseball teams.

Westport resident Greg Battersby realized he had a winner when he gathered together technicians to combine video technology with a baseball pitching machine in the late 1990s.

The idea has evolved into batting machines produced by ProBatter Sports LLC of Milford and used by the New York Mets, Boston Red Sox, Chicago White Sox and Cleveland Indians.

Battersby, a patent attorney with Grim & Battersby LLP in Norwalk and ProBatter's chief executive officer, said the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office has granted the company another patent for its ProBatt line of baseball pitching simulators.

The patent, issued last month to Michael Suba, Timothy O'Reilly and Battersby of ProBatter, is for a mounting frame that helps convert a conventional pitching machine into a video pitching machine. The technology simulates a real person pitching the ball. The machine is part of ProBatter's ProBatter II line, priced between $15,000 and $35,000.

It is the 12th patent that ProBatter Sports has received over the past four years. At least six additional patent applications are pending to protect the device's use in Japan, Australia, Canada, Mexico, Caribbean nations and in most of Europe.

Major league squads, as well as the Chiba, Japan, team managed by Stamford resident Bobby Valentine, use the ProBatter Professional machine, which costs $75,000 and is manufactured by ScanOptics of Manchester. The software is developed by BNS Solutions in Walpole, Mass.

"It's our flagship," said Battersby, whose company has been selling the machines since 2001. "We launched the product at the winter baseball meetings in 1999. We realized it needed more development work."

The Mets then agreed to test the refined machine when Valentine was their manager, and the relationship with the Stamford resident started.

"That's when we got up close and personal with Bobby," said Battersby, who played baseball for Seton Hall University. "As soon as he took the job with Chiba (before the 2004 season), he contacted us. He had a competition between his players and the machine."

Valentine called the machine "the closest simulator of major league pitching that a hitter can face and a great way for a hitter to prepare for a game."

Red Sox outfielder Trot Nixon was so impressed by the machine that he bought one for his own use to prepare for last year's season.

"Our poster child is Trot Nixon. He added 50 points to his batting average in 2003 and 100 points to his slugging average. He attributed his success to Jesus Christ and ProBatter," said Battersby, one of 15 stockholders in the business.

Nixon said he was impressed by how closely the machine simulates major league pitching.

"It greatly helped me to prepare for this past season as it could simulate game-like conditions," Nixon said. "I can't get that from regular batting practice. It was tremendous for situation hitting -- placing myself in a 2-2 count against (Roger) Clemens and then elevating a fastball or throwing a split."

The technology required about a $2.5 million investment, and Stahl Real Estate, a metropolitan New York City real estate firm, stepped up to the plate as an investor and minority owner.

The company has installed more than 80 units at batting cage training centers, colleges and the homes of wealthy individuals.

Battersby's son, Adam, a Providence College graduate, never made it to the major leagues, but he is now a salesman for ProBatter and was responsible for the contract with the Chiba team.

ProBatter is negotiating a licensing agreement with a pitching machine manufacturer in Japan to manufacture the technology for distribution in the Far East.

By Richard Lee
Assistant Business Editor

Copyright © 2004, Southern Connecticut Newspapers, Inc.