Ball Mudder was contacted by the Big XII Conference and was invited to the Big XII Baseball Tournament held May 25th thru May 29th at Globe Life Field in Arlington, TX to demonstrate the Ball Mudder machine and prepare all of the baseballs to be used for the tournament.
We prepared for this event in early May by shipping Ball Mudder Prototype #1 from Texas to Michigan so that the engineering team could update and prepare it and the second prototype for the event. They updated the software, refit some of the positioning technology. Both machines were shipped down to the stadium on May 20th, the engineering team flew in on May 22nd and they spent the day on the 23rd uncrating the machines and preparing them for use. We were able to secure the perfect room directly across from the umpires lounge to set up.
We were asked to mud a total of 85 dozen baseballs for the tournament and we completed the task by mudding 43 dozen on Tuesday May 24th and 42 dozen on Wednesday May 25th. Every baseball was mudded consistently and uniformly.
This video showing our Ball Mudder in action was created by Brady Moore of Learfield Sports and was shown on the stadium display screens during the baseball games.
Another video capturing the commentary from the announcers during the game.
Everyone that saw the Ball Mudder and saw the baseballs was extremely impressed. We had representatives from every team in the Big XII come into the room to see the Ball Mudder. The head of the Big XII umpires fell in love with the machine. If our machine wasn’t rubbing the baseballs with mud, the umpires would have had to do it. Rob Matwick, Executive VP of Texas Rangers Ballpark Operations stopped in and was very impressed. He commented that he was very happy that Richard had approached him with the Ball Mudder proposal to rub the baseballs for the tournament. Rob then brought Big XII Commissioner, Bob Bowlsby and Big XII Deputy Commissioner, Tim Weiser to see the Ball Mudders. They spent quite a bit of time asking questions about the Ball Mudder’s operation and how best to use the machine for college baseball.
We proved our consistency by perfectly mudding baseballs on 3 different days. Here are pictures demonstrating that:
All said, Ball Mudder had an extremely successful 3 days at the Big XII tournament and we impressed a lot of college and MLB executives. We are hopeful that the demonstration of the Ball Mudder and the contacts we made will lead to further interest by both college and major league teams.