photo by: Chad Lawhorn/Journal-World

Matt Wickersham, an owner of the D-Bat baseball and softball training facility in Lawrence, is pictured on July 18, 2023, inside a training tunnel at the company's eastern Lawrence location.

When it comes to cages, give me a circus cage with a lion in it over a batting cage with a pitching machine that throws curveballs. (It is more humiliating to get eaten alive with a bat in your hands.)

Lawrence has a new baseball and softball training business that indeed features such high-tech pitching machines, and its owner confirmed to me that hitting that curveball can be a little tough on the ego.

“It keeps mine in check a lot,” said Matt Wickersham, owner of the new D-Bat baseball and softball training facility at 2460 Fairfield St. in eastern Lawrence.

But that’s OK because dealing with failure is a big part of the game of baseball. Wickersham has learned that from some of the best authorities on the planet: major league baseball players. He learned a lot of his hitting fundamentals from Royals great John Mayberry, who was a teammate of Wickersham’s father.

“Don’t be afraid of failure,” Wickersham said of his takeaways from growing up around major league baseball players. “Baseball is a game of failure, and failure is just the next step in learning.”

Learning is a big part of the business model at D-Bat. The facility has three specialty pitching machines that throw both baseballs and softballs. Plus the 15,000-square-foot building also has nine other tunnels that are set up for live pitching, hitting and fielding drills. There’s an area for strength and agility training as well.

The D-Bat baseball and softball training facility is pictured on July 18, 2023 in eastern Lawrence.

If you are having a hard time picturing the location, it is southeast of 23rd Street and O’Connell Road and is directly behind the Tractor Supply store in a newly constructed multitenant building.

D-Bat is part of a national franchise that now has about 135 locations after being founded in 1998 in Texas. Wickersham, who previously owned a heating and cooling business in the Kansas City metro, had long wanted to get into the baseball and softball business. Leaders with the D-Bat corporate office steered him to Lawrence because the company already had decided that Lawrence was a great market for a baseball and softball business.

“They knew there was a real need here,” he said.

The company takes a different approach from many of the training facilities in the region, Wickersham said. Many of those facilities are affiliated with a baseball or softball academy, which often requires a kid to try out for one of the academy’s baseball or softball teams before they can start using the training facility.

D-Bat doesn’t field any baseball or softball teams, but rather focuses on providing a training facility to anyone who wants to use it.

“A lot of times you just need to be able to book a lesson with a quality instructor and learn to play the game properly,” Wickersham said. “A lot of these academies, you have to make the team, and then you have access to an instructor.”

D-Bat employs about a half dozen instructors in baseball and softball, with many of them being players or coaches from the college ranks. It also has a speed and agility instructor who focuses on drills for both sports.

People can buy a monthly membership for about $40 per month and up that provides them tokens for the batting cages and also gives them discounts on individual lessons. It also provides discounts at the pro shop, which stocks a large number of bats, gloves and other equipment for the games.

But people also can walk in the door and buy individual sessions in the batting cage for about $25 for a half hour.

Wickersham, who owns the business with his wife, Heidi, said the cages have been popular as many Lawrence residents remember when the city’s Parks and Recreation Department used to operate batting cages at various locations around town.

These cages, in addition to being indoors, are a bit more sophisticated. A digital screen lets you pick the speed of pitches, ranging from 35 mph to 70 mph, plus you can choose whether you want a fastball or curveball. On the softball side, there’s an option for fast-pitch or slow-pitch softball styles. The slow-pitch setting even allows you to choose whether the pitch will have frontspin, backspin or a knuckleball action.

The facility is drawing players of all ages, from the youngest of youth league players to adults.

“We are even getting some semipro players,” general manager Bret Compliment said.

photo by: Chad Lawhorn/Journal-World

A pitching tunnel is shown at the D-Bat baseball and softball training facility in eastern Lawrence. The tunnel has two mounds, a softball mound, shown above, and a raised baseball mound. The tunnel has multiple home plates, spaced at various intervals to meet the distance requirements of various leagues and ages.

Kids, though, are the bread and butter of the business. Wickersham — his father was pitcher Dave Wickersham, who will forever be in the baseball books as recording the first save in Kansas City Royals history — said working with the youngsters is the most enjoyable part of the business.

“My favorite thing has always been when you see a kid struggling, and then he or she gets it,” he said. “It is really fun when the parents come in the next day and they tell us how they went three for three in the last game.

“That success starts to happen, and then they fall in love with it.”

photo by: Chad Lawhorn/Journal-World

A 1964 Sporting News article on pitcher Dave Wickersham hangs in the D-Bats facility in Lawrence. Dave Wickersham, who played for the Kansas City Royals during parts of his 10-year career, is the father of D-Bats owner Matt Wickersham.