The Complete Handbook of Baseball & Softball Pitching Mats

It's a solid reference, and I learned a lot about the difference between PVC and TPU mats, but I felt the chapter on choosing a mat over-thought things a bit. A youth league president doesn't need to calculate cost-per-use for six different materials; we just needed something that wouldn't curl up by August. The maintenance chapter saved it for me - the curing trick for curled edges is genuinely clever. Just skim the first half if you're a smaller program.

This is the book I wish I had when I started running my private lesson business. The installation section is spot-on, especially the part about preparing the ground underneath. I messed up a mat last year by not leveling the dirt properly, and this manual would have prevented that $200 mistake. I docked a star because I wish it had a few more photographs or diagrams, but the written descriptions get the job done.

As a high school coach, I found the maintenance and troubleshooting chapter to be the most useful part. I've dealt with peeling backing and worn spike zones for years, and the repair instructions here are practical and saved me from buying a new mat this season. However, the brand guide felt a little out of date, and I don't think the business opportunities chapter is relevant for most coaches. Worth the money for the upkeep advice alone.

Finally, a book that treats this like a product category instead of a piece of foam rubber. The breakdown of durometer, shore hardness, and how those relate to grip on a push-off leg was exactly what I needed to convince my facility owner to buy better mats. The chapter on installation logic - why you should avoid metal stakes if you have a dirt surface - was a practical nugget I hadn't seen anywhere else. This earned a permanent place on my office shelf.

I manage a large tournament venue that rents out bullpen space, and this handbook has paid for itself several times over. The rental and business opportunity chapter was fantastic, giving me a realistic framework for pricing and maintenance schedules. The comparison of fabric-backed versus no-backing mats for durability on portable platforms was a critical piece of information. If you're in the business side of athletics, buy this.

It's very thorough, almost to a fault. I was hoping for a quick buyer's guide, but I got a full engineering textbook in parts. That said, the material science is accurate - I consulted with a colleague in the plastics industry, and the polymer explanations are solid. The troubleshooting section fixed my delamination issue with a specific adhesive I hadn't tried. I'm glad I bought it, though I'll probably only re-read a few key chapters.

Excellent resource. I run a small baseball academy and needed to standardize our bullpen setups across three locations. The install sections provided a uniform checklist for my staff, and the maintenance chapter slashed our annual replacement budget by about a third. The writing is dry and technical, which is exactly what I wanted - it's not a lifestyle blog post, it's a manual. The glossary alone is worth the cover price for training new staff.