About Us (with FAQ)

 

Brett Davis is a baseball enthusiast, youth coach and engineer whose son is on a travel team and regularly spends time with professional coaches.  

The problem: flimsy ball retrievers
Baseball training and coaching produces balls on the ground. Lots of them. Brett began to notice that both coaches used the same brand of  ball retriever, which broke repeatedly, and which Brett offered to repair.

With an engineer's eye, he soon recognized a problem inherent in their design was causing  stress fractures in the small radius of the clips that grasp the ball. He also saw that with heavy use, the polypropylene tubes were developing cracks.

The solution: Ball-Bandit
So Brett came up with a completely new concept for Ball-Bandit. A machined aluminum head contained channels for ball bearings backed by compression springs held in place by 4140 chrome moly screws. The ball bearings and springs were designed to retract easily when the head is pushed down over a ball. 

The ball bearings he specified were top quality, as were the springs: their life cycle rating exceeded anything they were likely to encounter over many years of daily use.  Brett knew the durability problem was solved. 

To tackle the issue of cracking tubes, Brett specified high-density polyethylene (HDPE) instead of polypropylene.  HDPE is  extremely strong (common uses include plastic lumber, natural gas distribution pipes and vehicle fuel tanks).

Brett then teamed up with fellow engineer Pat Killian, and Ball-Bandit was born.  Today, anyone can buy this American-made, superbly engineered ball retriever online at ball-bandit.com.

 ***

FAQ 

Where is Ball-Bandit in use?
Throughout 2014, Ball-Bandits have been used by Spooky Nook Sports, the largest indoor sports complex in North America, as well as at Cal Ripken Youth Camps, Triple Crown Sports, and Diamond Nation, picking up tens of thousands of balls daily -- so far without a single failure.

Who recommends Ball-Bandit?

  • Magor League Baseball
  • Colleges & Universities
  • Tommy Herr
  • Glenn Gallagher
  • Spooky Nook Sports

Where is Ball-Bandit made?

Made in U.S.A.

***