Franklin Sports MLB Electronic Baseball Pitching Machine

Perfect for a 5 & 7 year old. They love it. I love not having to pitch all the balls.

I wanted a dog ball thrower but the prices were high and reviews were low. I wondered if the baseball pitch machine could be modified for my active dog who loves to fetch. I was trying to train him to drop the ball into the cage but it was so narrow. I was inspired by the cone shaped dog ball drops so I grabbed a dog ECollar, aka cone of shame from the storage and modified it so the dog can drop it in. We are working on the training aspect of releasing the ball, but this will work great once we get that part down. The machine runs on batteries, so it is portable inside or out and has plenty of thrust with the plastic balls. So far my dog has not tried to chew it up. He does want to stand directly in path of ball coming out, but the plastic balls do not hurt him. My dog who wore the ECollar however steers clear of it! Lol!

First the Bad: Only goes about 10-15 ft of using off the ground. You will need to prop it up to get much farther. Putting it on a 5gallon bucket and no wind at all you can get it maybe 20ft the slightest breeze will dramatically change the path of flight. Speed and weight of the balls isn't enough to overcome that limitation. Even with no wind it still isn't consistent but that is not a bad thing as they'll need to learn to adjust and recognize locations. No good for machine pitch training no good for coach player training. Needs more speed/distance to make it worth it. No amount of adjusting the angle seems to help The Good: Fielder training is pretty good for popups or line drives when putting on a table or even a 5 gallon bucket. even with the lower distance it helps reaction time. The balls themselves are pretty decent. My swing on them haven't dented one yet. I bought and extra pack of balls to keep the balls from going to far. when pitched by a person they work pretty good. the balls also don't hurt except in some.. um.. sensitive locations If using in side it wouldn't be too bad for hitting. and since the balls are plastic,less chance of serious damage but still wouldn't suggest doing it where there are breakables. The price. Great price and good starter to see if a better machine will be beneficial. Conclusion. It is fun but very frustrating if trying to use it as a pitching machine. about worth it for the price. Still 4 star because i didn't expect it to be perfect at this price.

It’s okay — not the greatest, but it does an alright job for the price. My son doesn’t use it a lot, but when he does, it works fine for some quick backyard practice. It’s a fun starter pitching machine for younger kids, just not super powerful or consistent.

Purchased the 6696S3 pitching machine a few weeks ago after test driving a colleague's son's one. I've been using it for only 2 weeks now. The device has 3 pitching modes, and a few times I get hit in the face, but the balls are plastic, it does not hurt. It has a nice yoke to it, so you can adjust the angle of the pitch. It seems sturdy enough and the ball carriage might be expandable. I'm working with franklin customer service to see if there are extra ball carriages available. The carriage that come with it is assembled from three pieces, a lower section, upper section and end unit. You should be able to remove the end unit, and add two more sections and replace the end unit. One must be careful when ordering this device, there are two versions and three prices that I can tell. There is a 6 ball model and an 8 ball model that comes with a bat. Thinking I was purchasing the 8 ball model, I received the 6 ball model. My purchase price was $32.00, the more expensive models may have the 8 balls with it, I do not know. It hard to discern. I did purchase the extra dimple ball set (1998), it turns out that these are a little too heavy for the unit. They do shoot out of the unit, but at such a slow rate, they are way too easy to hit. A better choice might be ball set B001LK2F74, I have not purchased them yet, but plan on it. I find using the device, a very good workout and I have absolutely no issues with the device itself. It does what it suppose to do, just wish I got more balls to hit with.

Bought this item as a present for a 8 year old starting to get into baseball. Unfortunately, he was disappointed and so was I. Pros: I always try to find a bright side to things but unfortunately this item was not as described. The only easy part was it was easy to assemble, did not even have to read instructions. Needed 4 D batteries and then started to slowly run. Cons: First of all, the item came very jumbled in the box. No packaging and just the amazon package which caused all the pieces to be thrown around and bent as seen in the picture above. The item has very clearly been USED. The MLB stickers had been peeled off and stuck back on, the plastic was starting to peel, the battery compartment came half off with one of the screws not even tightened. The red light does not work as described and only is on when there are no balls in the spiral. I would say 3/10 of the pitches are able to be hit when it is at the highest incline. The first 2 pitches whenever you start the machine up come out very slow and low. Takes a while for the gears to run and as soon as it does it is out of balls and the wheels shut off which only leads to my son hitting it maybe three times before having to gather all the balls up and restart the process. I did get this item for $28 when I think it is listed at $50 but I expected the item to be brand new when it was clearly not. Very upset but will keep because I let my son open it out of the box so I can not rip away his birthday present now. He is entertained but I am very disappointed with the quality of the purchase. If I had to do it again I would not buy this item. SAVE YOUR MONEY.

Put this together last night for my grandson and was pleasantly surprised. It took me a minute to put the rails on as the directions are a little lacking. The pieces are supposed to be lettered but I couldn't find the letters on them but got it together as its fairly obvious how it goes. Get an 8 pack of D batteries when you order this item because if you don't have them on hand, like me, you'll have to wait to test it out. Finally got the batteries(I mean who keeps D batteries on hand any more?????) and tested it out. Worked perfectly! The machine pitched the balls a good 20 feet! I cant wait for my grandson o see it, hes gonna be thrilled. And it'll save my arm since I wont have to pitch to him for an hour!

So far, this seems like a great product for the money. My five-yr-old is pumped to have it. He can load it himself and then go stand wait for the pitches. He’s not hitting a lot of the pitches yet, but that’s the idea. I think it could be valuable for kids a little bit older too if they don’t have access to a machine that can throw real balls. The speed will not challenge older hitters much. I’ve tested it with three different kinds of wiffle balls. The balls that came with it (lighter, no holes) -vs- a slightly thicker ball with holes (bought at Dick’s) -vs- some durable and more flexible Precision Impact balls. The Precision Impact balls were wildly inconsistent (maybe they compress too easily). Of the other two, the original balls that came with it have proved to be the more consistent (small sample size). I did not hold the base of the unit, and recoil was minimal. I was shooting the balls on the most flat trajectory the machine can do. The video was recorded with fresh batteries in a fresh machine, just removed from the shipping box.