Batting practice will no longer be rained-out in Madison County.
That’s because John Pethel Jr., Grason Gillespie and Scotty Laugher have built a 16,000 square-foot indoor baseball-softball hitting and pitching complex in Danielsville that opens Saturday.
The three former college baseball players coach a local travel team and needed a way to get their squad indoors during inclement winter months.
The “Diamond Club” grew from that motivation.
“We wanted something for the travel team … It just built from there,” Pethel said.
The Diamond Club is located south of Danielsville on Hwy. 29. The business features multiple indoor batting cages and clay pitching mounds. Pitching machines hold up to 200 balls and reach speeds of 82 mph.
Outdoor pitching mounds and a practice field are also in the works.
The Diamond Club offers private hitting and pitching lessons from six instructors who played at least collegiate ball.
The Diamond Club has already signed up at least 30 students, “and the doors aren’t open yet,” Pethel noted.
The instructors include a former collegiate softball player, Heather Vaughn, who was a two-time All-American and NAIA Player of the Year.
Frank Fultz — a strength and conditioning coach with the Atlanta Braves for 16 years and now a pitching coach in the Mets organization — will join the Diamond Club as a guest instructor during the winter and early spring. Pethel calls Fultz, “a close friend and an incredible teacher.”
Pethel hopes the indoor complex will level the playing field between area travel teams and those in metro Atlanta. He explains that kids in the suburbs have long benefited from these kinds of facilities.
“These teams from Atlanta are fortunate enough to be able to pitch and hit indoors all winter long in indoor facilities,” Pethel said. “We really expect to see the caliber of baseball and softball in our area improve now that we have the same advantage.”
