Have a Ball at Area Batting Cages

I can hit grounders and pop-ups hard enough to satisfy my 8-year-old aspiring A-Rod. I can squat to catch his fastball. But when my son, Isaac, asks me to pitch to him (fast pitches, like those he will face with his youth team this fall), I realize I am out of my league. Even if I could hit the strike zone consistently, who wants to chase all the missed pitches, or the ones he smacks over my head?

That's why we've been exploring batting cages this summer.

There is something satisfying about arriving at a batting cage facility with your baseball-crazed son or daughter, feeding a $10 bill into the machine and listening to the clink-clink-clink of tokens tumbling out. For the next half-hour or so, your child can stand in the batter's box, swinging at pitches fired from an automated machine. The whole place is enclosed by netting (the "cage"), so hits and missed pitches are contained.

But many of the batting cages in the Washington area are geared to older kids (say age 10 and older) and grown-up jocks. It is hard to find a place where the pitches are slower than 45 mph, an impossible speed for many in the younger set.

We struck out completely at the batting cage at Nationals Park, where fans face off against a computer-simulated major league pitcher. The ball hums in at about 65 mph, and patrons must be at least 10 to give it a try.

There were more options at Dugout batting cages at Braddock Park in Clifton, one of several in the area that offers slow- and fast-pitch softball machines, along with baseball machines that range from 45 to 65 mph.

Isaac started out on a slow softball machine. It wasn't perfect: The ball arcs as if it were an underhand pitch, often crossing the plate about level with his head. But he mastered the concept and the timing well enough to step into the cage and make contact about half the time.

At Maryland Baseball Academy in Gaithersburg we found pitching machines that could be adjusted as low as 30 mph, ideal for the youngest players.

Unlike the outdoor cages, which usually share space with miniature-golf courses, driving ranges and other entertainment options, the academy was designed as a teaching facility that offers one-one-one coaching sessions ($55 per half-hour), birthday parties and camps for individuals and groups. But the cages are open to the public, and the academy staff willingly adjusts machine speed and height.

"We really try to make sure that everybody is hitting at a speed that is appropriate for them," said owner Derek Hacopian, a former minor league player and University of Maryland and Churchill High School star who opened the academy 12 years ago.

Prices were comparable to other facilities: 15 pitches per token, $2 for one token, $5 for three tokens, $10 for seven and $20 for 15. Seven tokens should be more than enough for all but the most indefatigable ballplayers, even with the rest breaks that come when other patrons line up for their turns.

The downside of the baseball academy is that it lacks the other attractions that outdoor cages normally offer. So after you use up the tokens, there's little to do but buy a snack from the vending machines and head home. Or, perhaps, that's the upside.