Research and development of this invention and Application have not been federally sponsored, and no rights are given under any Federal program.
NOT APPLICABLE
Field of the Invention
This invention relates to baseball batting cages, in general, and to towable/rollable ones, in particular.
Description of the Related Art
As will be appreciated, baseball batting cages are available in a variety of sizes, shapes, manufactures and pricings. As will also be appreciated, those installed for college and semi-professional baseball use are of a greater, or better, quality than those employed for junior league baseball—or even, just for softball players—for practicing their batting skills. For professional baseball teams, on the other hand, the designs are improved further, so that the batting cage will be more safely and easily assemblable and disassemblable; besides being more safely and easily connectable to receive and thereafter release their nettings at the sides, tops and rears to additionally protect those outside and surrounding the cage and to keep loose balls within a certain range so that they are easy to pick up and are not lost. When the batting cage also needs to be shifted from place to place at a field or stadium—and ultimately brought to a storage location—the batting cage additionally needs to be safely and easily moved, as by towing on a roller system. And this remains all the more so even though the batting cage might only be broken down for storage once or twice a year.
Proposed types of towable/rollable baseball batting cages offered on the market to meet these requirements have been found to be wanting—and primarily because their lack of sturdiness and stability allows them to undesirably collapse at times during use.
It is an object of the invention, therefore, to enhance towable/rollable baseball batting cage performance by addressing such limitations in a new and improved towable/rollable manufacturing manner to provide an optimal operational utilization.
It is another object of the invention to provide a towable/rollable baseball batting cage in which adjustments can readily be made in its configuration to vary, where desired, the degrees of protection offered by its nettings to coaches and players observing a practice from just outside the enclosed cage area to begin with.
As will be clear from the following description, the towable/rollable baseball batting cage of the invention employs a mechanical framework for the batting cage utilizing a series of braces and clamps in a fabrication which locks its implemented strut and tubing component parts in position.
These and other features of the present invention will be more clearly understood from a consideration of the following description, taken in connection with the accompanying Drawings in which:
The prior art towable/rollable baseball batting cage of
Prior to assembly, the prior art struts (as so far described) are rotated downwardly atop or adjacent and above one another, as shown by the arrows A1, A2, and A3—with the strut 18 being above the strut 16, with the strut 16 being over the strut 14, and with the strut 14 being rotatable to rest above the strut 12. In common installations, the struts typically are composed of tubular inter-coupled curved sections 70 and straight sections 71 in satisfying needed size requirements.
Then, in readying the typical cage for use via a counter rotation movement of the struts, a pair of linear stiffening tubes 60, 61 are added to join with the struts 12 and 14, and a second pair of linear stiffening tubes 62, 63 are added to join with the struts 14 and 16. Lastly, a third pair of linear stiffening tubes 64, 65 are added to join with the struts 16 and 18. With appropriate nettings connected with the struts and tubes, the cage structure is formed.
Experience has shown, however, that the couplings of these clawed-ended clasp stiffening tubes with the tubular struts as rods do not provide a sturdiness of the cage once assembled, nor a stability of the cage as it is moved about. Such lack of sturdiness and stability will be appreciated by the skilled artisan as allowing individual ones of the linear stiffening tubes 60-65 to slide outwardly, and undesirably shift to the curved sections of the struts. This can lead to a collapse of the nettings connected in forming the cage enclosure—and especially when the cage is towed or rolled from one location to another as the claw clasps 72, 73 slide down towards the curved strut sections.
With respect to the towable/rollable batting cage of the invention illustrated in
a) As to the tubes 64 and 65, the U-shaped clamp at their upper ends are fitted between the 2 rings welded on the left and right sides of the strut 18, as at 90, 91;
b) As to the tubes 60 and 61, the U-shaped clamp at their lower ends are fitted between the 2 welded rings on the left and right sides of the strut 12, as at 92, 93;
c) As to the tubes 62 and 63, the U-shaped clamp at their upper ends are fitted inwardly of the 2 welded rings on the left and right sides of the strut 16, as at 94, 95;
d) Also with respect to the tubes 62 and 63, the U-shaped clamp at their lower ends are fitted inwardly of the 2 welded rings on the left and right sides of the strut 14, as at 96, 97;
e) As to the tubes 64 and 65, once again, the U-shaped clamp at their lower ends are fitted between the 2 welded rings on the left and right sides of the strut 16, as at 98, 99; and
f) As to the tubes 60 and 61, the U-shaped clamp at their upper ends are each fitted between the 2 welded rings on the left and right sides of the strut 14, as at 100, 101.
In assembling the towable/rollable baseball cage of the invention, two persons are involved in its setting up, and subsequent knocking down. First, the lower ends of the tube modifications 60 and 61 according to
While there have been described what are considered to be a preferred embodiment of the present invention, it will be readily appreciated by those skilled in the art that modifications can be made without departing from the scope of the teachings herein. Thus, whereas a welding of the clamps and braces to the curved sections 70 of the struts 12,14, 16 and 18 of the above-described batting cage have provided beneficial results, other manners of their securement might be utilized instead. Also, one might attempt to proceed with the assembly and disassembly of the towable/rollable batting cage without the employment of locking pins to temporarily secure the linear stiffening tubes 60-65 in place while the cage is being set up or broken down. But such manners of proceeding might lead to the possibility of the assembler experiencing difficulty in retaining everything in proper position in so doing. As a reasoned analysis will show, such elimination of those components very well could result in a decrease of the rigidity and sturdiness of the cage of the preferred embodiment, and in a manner which decreases the availability of its safe and easy transportation about, especially when the cage is to be towed, or is being towed by a mechanical means instead of by a manual activity. And, as will be appreciated, the strut 18 defines the front opening of the batting cage, while the strut 14 defines the rear closure of the cage.
In similar manner, to even further strengthen the sturdiness and stability of the invention, additional rings may be welded to the straight sections 71 of the struts 14 and 16 to receive the upper end of the modified tubes 62 and 63 of
A Provisional Patent Application covering the invention described herein was filed on Nov. 25, 2015, and assigned Ser. No. 62/259,977.
Number | Date | Country | |
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62259977 | Nov 2015 | US |