Batter up!
Just north of the Missouri River near Harrah’s Casino lies a small company that is one of Kansas City’s best-kept secrets.
“Locally, we’re a fairly well-hidden little gem,” says Joe Giovagnoli, sales manager at Master Pitching Machine. The company is well-known in baseball circles, and more than one big-league batter owes the health of their batting swing to this 57-year-old pitching machine manufacturer.
Master Pitching Machine, located at 4200 N.E. Birmingham Road, was founded by Giovagnoli’s father, Paul, who began building pitching machines while running 
a driving range in Topeka during the 1950s. “One thing led to another and pretty soon he started producing them for other people,” Giovagnoli says.
Today, the family-run company employs 30 people, many of whom have been with the company for more than 20 years and a few who have worked there since the company opened its doors. That employee loyalty, coupled with a strong work ethic and positive attitude, ensures a quality product and keeps training costs low, Giovagnoli says. “When people have been doing things for so long, there’s not too much retraining,” says Giovagnoli, who is proud of the family-like envrionment the company has been able to cultivate. “We’ve always been based here. This has always been home, and it’s where it will always be.”
The company’s machines are used by every Major League Baseball team in the country. It manufactures the market’s only arm-style pitching machine, which uses a mechanical arm to throw the ball to create a more realistic pitching experience.
“You get the same sense of timing from our machine that you get from a live pitcher,” Giovagnoli says.
The company builds seven different models of pitching machines and offers products for all markets, from backyard/training machines to commercial machines. Although it offers an array of products, the main difference between training and commercial machines is electronical – training machines have a handheld switch that triggers the pitch and commercial machines are coin-operated – so manufacturing different machines is not difficult.
Keeping production simplified is important, as the company builds its machines from the ground up within the walls of its two buildings.
“We do everything from start to finish on the machines here,” Giovagnoli says. Working in batches and within 100,000 square feet, the company fabricates sheet metal, welds, paints and assembles. The company also has its own machine shop where it makes most of the parts that go into the pitching machines.
The pitching machines have a lifespan that reaches upward of 50 years, so Master Pitching Machine relies on new customers for most of its sales. Still, the company manages to sell about 1,000 machines a year, Giovagnoli says. And when it comes to distributing those 500-600-pound units, being centrally located in Kansas City helps the company save on shipping costs.
The average sales price of one of the company’s pitching machines is approximately $2,500. But like most businesses, Giovagnoli says the current economy is a challenge. The credit crunch has stalled plans to open new batting facilities as vendors fail to secure funding. “On the commercial side, we talk to as many people as ever. People can’t secure the funding,” Giovagnoli says. And as for training machines? “When it comes down to it, most people aren’t going to find it a necessity.”
Despite economic challenges, Giovagnoli says the company’s focus on its single product will help ensure as healthy a future as it has in the past. “Its been to our benefit that we’ve always focused on one thing: batting cages,” he says. “The core of our business is specializing in what we’re manufacturing.” 
