Wanna know how fast that speedball your old friend from high school threw by you and made you look like a fool? Then support this kickstarter from Scoutee, which is developing a device and an app that will turn your smart phone into a radar gun and scouting tool.
It’s a device plus an app. The device fits in the palm of your hand and it’s what actually measures and tracks the pitches. It then communicates with your phone via Bluetooth, and an app makes sense of the data for you. It’ll give you speed, location, type of pitch and allow you to make notes and stuff.
I imagine a lot of us have no real use for it as most ballparks, even minor league parks, have visible radar readouts now. But hey, maybe you wanna live the glamours life of a scout, putting way too many miles on your car, eating food that does no favor for your heart and gut and sitting in the hot sun on the off chance that the kid you’re watching has some potential. Except you’re not being paid for it by a major league club. You’re just doing it for the yuks.
Which isn’t to say this thing isn’t neat. It kind of is. I just wonder what the market is for it. Youth coaches maybe, although focusing on gun readings for kids is probably the opposite of what coaches should be doing given all of the arm problems there are. Pitchers who think they’re amazing, aren’t being scouted for some reason and who want to promote themselves, perhaps. Or, more likely, their dads. Anyone else who needs this information is being supplied with an actual professional grade gun, I’d reckon.
Still: technology is fun, right?
