The conventional wisdom behind batting cages hasn't changed in a long time: drop some tokens into the machine at your local miniature golf course or dedicated facility. Take a few hacks at scuffed-up Wiffle Balls, try to impress your girlfriend and maybe, if you're lucky, get a little softball practice in before the big game without throwing out your back.
In Wisconsin, that's how batting cages work -- that is, until Muskego's Dingers opened last May, filling a void for serious hardball and softball players alike.
Dingers isn't an arcade. It isn't loaded with video games or other distractions. Instead, it's a simple building in an industrial park, converted from the family pattern shop business into a facility designed to make baseball players better hitters through state-of-the-art pitching machines never before seen in the Milwaukee area.
Its founders, Vince Breider and Dena Hunt, had the idea while on a family little league vacation to Jupiter, Fla.
"First of all, we just love baseball," says Breider. "My son wanted to visit a batting cage, and as we were leaving, I said to my wife, ‘What does this place look like?'"
The answer was that it looked a whole lot like the family business.
Breider and Hunt were already in the process of closing the old shop, so the couple switched gears and began work on Dingers, W189 S8224 Mercury Dr. The end result is a batting cage that's completely different from what their customers were used to.
Dingers' machines can throw up to eight pitches, from fastballs to curve balls to sinkers to sliders. They can simulate right or left-handed pitchers at speeds ranging from 50 to 90 miles per hour. They use real hardballs and softballs, and unlike conventional cages, there aren't any tokens. Batters pay by the minute or buy memberships for discounted hitting.
In short, it's an experience you can't get if you're stepping out of the batter's box every five minutes to plug more tokens.
"If you go to a batting cage, you're there to work on your game," says Breider. "It's the muscle memory, it's the working, it's the constant repetition."
Breider and Hunt are also in the process of building a wiffleball field outside the facility, and they expect it to be ready by spring. Dingers is also putting on seminars, the first conducted by former Brewers second baseman Jim Gantner and bullpen coach Ron Nedset. With a lounge upstairs, a pitchers mound for live pitching and catching and a small lunch and snack menu, it's easy to see how Dingers is establishing itself as a must-visit for developing players.
Even the owners and employees find themselves practicing their technique.
"I pretty much sucked," says Bredier. "I was a good defensive player, but now, I'm hitting 80, no problem."
Breider says his customer range from 6 years old to high schoolers to much older softball players, and they have "quite a few members" who are becoming regulars.
Dingers is open seven days a week, and surprisingly, business actually picks up during the winter. In January, players start to get ready for spring.
And some families just come in to play catch indoors. "We try to accommodate all different levels of training," says Hunt.
It's been a fun ride for the couple, though Hunt says customers are still getting used to the idea of buying their practice by the minute, and not by the token.
"People up here just aren't used to that concept yet," she says. "But there's a reason for that. We've had people come in on dates, and we want that, too. But we tell people to keep their mind open, and they'll improve."
Says Hunt, "We didn't want to turn into jungle gyms and basketball courts. This is baseball, and that's been our vision all along."
Andy is the president, publisher and founder of OnMilwaukee. He returned to Milwaukee in 1996 after living on the East Coast for nine years, where he wrote for The Dallas Morning News Washington Bureau and worked in the White House Office of Communications. He was also Associate Editor of The GW Hatchet, his college newspaper at The George Washington University.
Before launching OnMilwaukee.com in 1998 at age 23, he worked in public relations for two Milwaukee firms, most of the time daydreaming about starting his own publication.
Hobbies include running when he finds the time, fixing the rust on his '75 MGB, mowing the lawn at his cottage in the Northwoods, and making an annual pilgrimage to Phoenix for Brewers Spring Training.
