NY Daily News 5-29-2004

Play: See if you can hack it in the big leagues

For about the price of a ballpark frank, wanna-be sluggers can step into the batter's box and dig in against a pitcher at Shea Stadium.
Well, sort of.
A new batting cage at the Chelsea Piers sports complex on the Hudson River (between 17th and 23rd Sts.) is the next best thing to facing live pitching. The ProBatter II Baseball Simulator works like a conventional pitching machine, with one difference.
Instead of being tossed from a plain mechanical arm, a steady diet of 70 mph fastballs come hurling out of a moving, life-size image of a pitcher at Shea.
The baseballs are released from an opening in the screen and timed to coincide with the pitcher's windup, so the effect is just like taking some hacks against an actual southpaw.
A ProBatter II session costs $4 for 16 pitches (a regular batting cage at Chelsea Fields is $2 for 10 pitches). The ball speed can be adjusted from 55 mph to 75 mph. The only drawback? Hotheaded hitters will look silly charging the mound.

Robert Dominguez