On my trip to The Step2 Company’s home offices in Streetsboro, Ohio last year, one of the items that really caught my eye was something that was still in the prototype stage, and not quite greenlit for production just yet. Fast-forward a couple of seasons, and that unique toy has just hit the streets as the Step2 Home Run Baseball Trainer – something a little bit different in this space, and certainly different for Step2. Having coached my oldest daughter’s Pee Wee Baseball team last year, I would’ve loved to have had one of these on-hand to help the little ones build their “batting eye,” honing their skills with a bat as they got their hand-eye coordination completely locked-in.
The gravity-fed “zig-zag” design of the Home Run Baseball Trainer allows the balls to load one at a time, each one released by tapping a yellow release lever that can be switched to either side to allow for both right, and left-handed batters.
Adjustable from 27″ to 45″ (ball release) to accommodate different ages and heights of batters, the Home Run Baseball Trainer includes four balls, and a special Step2 “Crusher” bat – everything you need to get started. And, as kids’ skills improve, you can take this to the diamond and load it up with regulation balls for genuine batting action!
Now, there are two points to be aware of that I’d like to make note of, the first of which is that there’s a very slight learning curve as to how quickly to tap the release lever. Too long of a tap could launch more than one ball, so watch out for that. The second point is that assembly may be a tad challenging for some, so the folks at Step2 have released a helpful video as an accompaniment to the printed instructions.
