They are the Kings of Swing at Grand Slam USA in Countryside. Tonight, like every Tuesday night, they enjoy a decided home-cage advantage.
Scott Daly and Marty Dykas are regulars here.
Daly spends three nights a week, from September to March, popping dollar tokens, at a $15-$20-per-week clip, into the slots in the arcade-style batting cages. Daly and Dykas also forked over an additional $69 each this year to take part in all three sessions of Grand Slam’s high school hitting leagues.
During the spring, Daly and Dykas are teammates on the Lyons Township baseball team. High school practice starts two weeks from Monday.
Tuesday, though, Daly arrives in a different uniform. On the back of his San Francisco Giants jersey is his I’m-a-heavy-hitter message: B-O-N-D-S, it reads. As in Barry. Dykas puts the night to come in perspective: “Oooh, all tied up,” he says, scanning the computer printout of the Tuesday Night High School Hitting League standings on the bulletin board. “It comes down to this. We can only beat ourselves. We’re going for the three-peat.”
– – –
High school baseball. It ain’t what it used to be.
With a nod to Kevin Costner and the Iowa cornfield that became a baseball cliche, the lesson has become this: Build them and they will come, in from the winter cold, seeking a cure for cabin fever, a teen hangout, a place to hone their skills. But mostly they will come seeking baseball.
Outdoor batting cages have been around, seemingly, since the dawn of miniature golf. The roots of Chicago’s commercial indoor facilities go back about 10 years to the construction of the first, mammoth-30,000 square feet-Grand Slam USA in Palatine. In recent years, however, spurred by a booming demand for private pitching, hitting and catching instruction for the under-15 crowd, for girls softball players and for high school boys, indoor facilities have popped up like crocuses through the Chicago snow.
Though nationally the growth of indoor hitting facilities is flat (Grand Slam-Palatine owner Leland Fisher says that for every two Grand Slams built, two fold), there are four Grand Slam USAs in the Chicago area-including Fisher’s second facility in Streamwood-one in Glenwood and the 2 1/2-year-old Countryside location.
Lately, smaller, independent competitors have surfaced. In April, inspired by a list of high school clients that was growing out of control, former White Sox Triple-A farmhand and Lockport grad Ron Coomer-he hopes to become the Dodgers’ starting third baseman this spring-and a partner opened CW Swing Town in Orland Park. Former Cardinal-Brewer-Phillie Jim Adduci’s instructional facility-On Deck Baseball School-has been in Tinley Park for two years. Ex-Dodger, Indian, Mariner and White Sox Jack Perconte of Joliet has a baseball academy in Naperville.
What these businesses have meant to the high school game and hitters are subjects of debate, but the numbers cannot be denied.
Fisher says 350 four-man teams took part in the three sessions of the winter hitting leagues at his two locations; 175 of those were high school teams. The players were from Buffalo Grove, Fremd, St. Viator, St. Charles, Streamwood, New Trier and Palatine High Schools and the city.
“And we’ve had to restrict the number of leagues we have, because we have to let the public use it, too,” says Fisher.
Fisher’s instructional staff, including such former major-leaguers as Tim Stoddard, Dan Schatzeder, Paul Popovich and Bill Campbell, also gave 28,000 private pitching, hitting and catching lessons last year.
Countryside Grand Slam General Manager Phil Mesi played host to 22 four-man teams from Bolingbrook, Hinsdale South, Downers Grove South, St. Laurence, Proviso West, Montini, the Glenbard high schools and Nazareth Academy in his third session of leagues, which ended this week. Coomer, whose facility is smaller, had 30 two-man teams in five high school leagues servicing Sandburg, Andrew, Joliet Catholic, Shepard and others. Adduci says he and his staff of former pro players give 150 private lessons a week.
“High school baseball is very competitive now,” says Adduci. “In order to play at a place like Andrew or Brother Rice, you’re competing against 150-plus going out for the teams. If you come to a place like mine, your chances of making the team are that much better.”
But as the kids come, the debate goes on: Does hitting in a cage in the winter really help a player prepare for live pitching in the spring? And how do you calculate the cost versus benefits of the additional private instruction provided?
“On the plus side,” says Andrew baseball coach Frank Ganser, “because of these places the kids I get now know more about the fundamentals of hitting than ever before. On the minus side, sometimes they think too much. When I was kid, it was `Here’s a bat. Step toward the pitch and watch the ball.’ Now it’s `top hand . . . stay closed . . . etc.”‘
The debate is joined by veteran Oak Park baseball coach Jack Kaiser.
“If kids want to spend all that money (private lessons run about $30 per half hour), it’s their business, but I’m not really sold on them,” says Kaiser. “If they’re teaching the fundamentals, great, but I think too often the instructors go out on a tangent. If a kid goes there and they teach something different from what we teach, now he comes back and he doesn’t know what to do.
“I had a couple kids who went to those things. It took half the season to get them back in the groove. What I tell my kids is make sure you’re just getting the basics.”
Grand Slam Countryside hitting instructor Tom Donovan, head baseball coach at Moraine Valley Community College and a Kansas City Royals scout, understands Kaiser’s concerns.
“The danger,” he says, “is if both sides are hard-headed. Then kids can get messed up. I tell them, `If I tell you one thing and your coach tells you another, do it the coach’s way if you want to play.’ “
Daly and Dykas don’t avail themselves of lessons, and it’s no wonder. First baseman-outfielder Dykas hit .320 last spring. Daly, a second baseman, hit .387. But they love those cages.
“As long as you just work on mechanics, they help you a lot,” Daly says. “What I try to do is concentrate on things like swinging down on the ball, pivoting with my right foot, keeping my front foot closed and my weight back.”
The important thing, say players and coaches, is to not take too seriously one’s ability to time-and hit-a machine-pitched fastball. The important thing is to keep it fun; to realize it’s not the real thing.
“There are certain people who can be great cage hitters,” says Dykas. “But hitting for points in a league is not a realistic baseball situation. You can be a cage legend, but when you’re out on that field it doesn’t mean a thing.”
But fun for how long?
“The Chicage area is oversaturated with batting cages,” says Fisher. “There’ll be a major shakeup soon. It’s a six-month business. We extend it to 10 with all our lessons, and we have trouble. People come in here in February and March and say you guys got a gold mine. I tell them to come back in June.”
– – –
What a finish. Move over Joe Carter.
Heading into the final night of the regular season in Grand Slam USA-Countryside’s Tuesday night league, everything-the team title, the batting title-is up for grabs. Daly’s 117-point average wins him the individual batting title for the third session in a row. Dykas is second at 111.
The team battle is between Dykas and Daly’s two-time defending champion LT Sluggers team and Lyons teammate Dan Powers’ plain old LT team.
In Cage No. 4, the LT Sluggers whip the Cubbie Fans 7-0. In Cage No. 7, plain old LT defeats the Sox Fans 7-0. (The Sox Fans are three sophomores from St. Laurence and one from De La Salle who were all members of last summer’s Clear Ridge 14-year-old Babe Ruth team that took second in the nation.)
The two Lyons squads finish tied for first with 28-7 records.
Grand Slam manager Mesi wants no part of this dilemma. He leaves it to the players. They decide there is only one way to resolve this mess:
And that’s to play basketball on Grand Slam’s indoor court.
The LT Sluggers win 15-4. Their three-peat is complete.
