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US 5,097,985 AGranted
Baseball soft-toss pitching machine and method
OwnerKenneth E. Jonesinventor
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A soft-throw machine is disclosed that dispenses softballs or baseballs or other articles one at a time (or alternatively, a selected plurality or multiplicity at a time) from a reservoir onto a chute for delivery to a hitting area where a person may strike the ball. In addition to its automatic dispensing, soft-throwing capability, the machine is specially designed for quiet operation to decrease the possibility that the striker or batter can anticipate delivery of the ball.
Claims16
An automatic ball delivery system comprising:
- generally downwardly-extending chute means for delivering balls by gravity to a hitting area;
- a dispenser tank for automatically depositing balls into the upper end of the chute means, comprising:
- a housing defining a reservoir therein for balls having a dispensing opening at the side thereof;
- rotatable vane means mounted in the reservoir for delivering balls to the dispensing opening, said vane means having a multiplicity of ball-holding sections of selected size for holding a selected number of balls in given sections;
- a cover mounted between the ball reservoir and the vane and over the dispensing opening for limiting the number of balls dispensed from a given holding section to said selected number;
- and means for automatically rotating the vane means at a randomly varying rate to dispense the balls at a randomly varying rate;
- and
- means for supporting the dispensing tank and the chute means.
5 more elements
A method of dispensing balls a selected number at a time, comprising:
- automatically rotating at a randomly varying rate a generally horizontal rotatable vane defining at least a plurality of ball-holding sections beneath a reservoir, to sequentially present the ball-holding sections to a dispensing opening in the reservoir at a randomly varying rate;
- and confining the number of balls at the opening to that contained in the ball-holding section presented to the opening, for dispensing the selected number of balls into a chute for delivery to a selected area.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.