The 21st Century Batting Tee has seven years of history behind it, and was borne out of necessity. In 1994, I was working at Grand Slam USA for a gentlemen by the name of Mr. Lee Fisher. Lee is as good a man as you’ll ever meet. He had the best baseball facilities and some of the best coaches. I won’t name drop but most if not all played many years in the major leagues. Four of the coaches played more than fifteen years each. During those days, our facility was active with coaches and players from 7am until 10pm on weekends and 2pm to10:30pm during week days through out the year. I worked weekends, usually from 7am until 10pm, had many customers, many over a period of years, became like family members. I rarely took a break from the half-hour and hour batting and pitching lessons I provided to boys and girls of all ages.

The coaches at Grand Slam participated one year in national certification as professional hitting instructors given by ex-Cub and Dodger manager, Jim Lefebvre. During the course of my batting instruction, I threw to hitters an average of one pitch every 4 or 5 seconds. I am blessed with rubber arm, but my body took a severe beating. Yes, we had tees and pitching machines but none provided a key ingredient: As a coach I need to be able to isolate the hitter’ swing and, better yet, isolate different components of the swing---setup and presentation, initial start of the swing, the swing itself, bat-ball contact and techniques for how to hit pitches in different parts of the strike zone,and finally, the follow-through.

After two years at Grand Slam, I decided, after searching and using different products on the market that there was nothing out there. I developed a new type of batting tee. I developed and tested it for the next five years. It’s the coaches’ dream and can finally be the solution for what to do with enthusiastic youngsters who have just left tee-ball and aren’t ready for live pitch baseball.

Youth baseball loses countless members to other sports because they get hit by pitchers who aren’t ready to pitch and get frustrated at themselves because they can’t hit adequately because they haven’t learned the proper techniques to hit a baseball. The games are long and boring to some. The 21st Century Tee will keep and bring back the enthusiasm for baseball, specifically hitting a baseball. The tee and the hitting instruction tape that goes with it is the perfect product!