Friday, March 21, 2008
Repko’s
Invention
Copyrighted by Sarah D. Morris, 2008
All baseball fans understand
becoming a major leaguer takes much dedication from the player, but I don’t
think we realize how much time the families spend helping their sons to achieve
their goal. Oh yes, everyone has heard about the mother who drove her son to Little
League practice and games, or the father who never missed a game where his son
played. My mother drove me to therapy, and she rarely missed a game when I was
statistician for my high school baseball team. This is what parents do to help
their children to achieve their dreams.
I am naïve.
Helping their children to achieve their dreams is what good parents do. The
Dodgers have a player who has had incredible familial support during his life.
Ed Repko explained to me during a
recent e-mail interview that he has been playing baseball with his son, Jason,
since he was a baby. At seven, Jason told his dad, “I want to be a major league
ballplayer.” The older Repko told him that he would help him to achieve his
dream if he did well in school and was nice to everyone. Jason was a good
student, and several times, he was “voted the nicest kid on the team.”
Jason debuted for the Dodgers in
2005. His father still is his off-season
batting practice pitcher. Over Jason’s lifetime, Ed estimates he has thrown
tens of thousands of pitches. With every level of baseball, the pitchers become
harder to hit. Ed has invented a system to help players to make batting practice
more meaningful.
Since Ed believed Jason needed more efficient batting practice, he created the TIME RIGHT™
Batting System. He was a machinist by trade. With this background, he could do
simple calculations and came up with this system.
People who understand baseball well
know hitting is about timing. The TIME RIGHT™
Batting System works on the hitter‘s reaction time. The main goal of pitching
is to mess with the hitter’s timing. Therefore,
if this system can give batting practice more realistic pitching speeds, it
should help the hitters. After watching
many poor offensive Dodger teams, I understand the hitters need all the help
that they can get.
Because major league pitchers don’t
usually pitch batting practice, the hitters see much slower pitches than they
do during a game. People understand
coaches or fathers don’t throw as fast as Brad Penny or most major league
pitchers. Since they don’t, it would be
logical batting practice makes the hitters have slower reaction times than they
should. The TIME RIGHT™ Batting System
allows the batting practice pitcher to throw slower than a major leaguer, but the
pitches appear faster to the hitter than they are and the hitter requires a
faster reaction time. It uses charts, a
special batting mat, and a radar gun. It
was made to help every level of baseball player.
After missing the 2007 season with
a hamstring injury, Jason is having a
good spring. This spring he hit his
first professional grand slam. Although
many Dodger fans dislike his reckless play because he has gotten hurt and they
blamed him for Rafael Furcal’s injury last spring, I have always enjoyed watching
him play. When he came to the Dodgers,
few players appeared to like baseball, so Jason provided us something exciting
to watch.
Although I haven’t heard anyone
describe Jason as a five-tool player, to me, he is. Arguably, he is the fastest Dodger. He can play great defense. Although Juan Pierre probably believes he
should backup Andruw Jones if he gets hurt, I disagree because Jason Repko has a
much better throwing arm than
If his father’s invention, TIME
RIGHT™ Batting System, helps Repko to be a better hitter, it is worthwhile. A
former general manager once told me family support was important to a player’s
success. If this is true, Repko should be a successful major leaguer. Ed Repko
foresees continuing to play baseball with his son for many years. I will
continue to enjoy watching the young Repko play for the Dodgers.