Seriously, I’ve never heard of this automated baseball batting cage in 1 Utama until the gang suggested baseball for our supposedly-monthly fitness activity. Play baseball at the rooftop of 1 Utama Shopping Centre? Is it a new business? Apparently not. I did some digging and traced its website in 2006, saying it’s opening in May 2006! I suddenly feel like “katak di bawah tempurung”.
This was the website design in 2006. I thought it looked better than the one they have now: www.hit.com.my.
The access to the rooftop seemed pretty limited. We read online about accessing it from the lift behind The Coffee Bean & Tea and it worked perfectly. The rooftop seemed bare and quiet at 10.30am on a Sunday. Well, that was great because we could be as noob as we were.
We opted for unlimited balls for 30 minutes because we’d probably just miss a lot of balls. We also opted for softball instead of baseball because softball is slower and the ball is bigger; perfect. Except I still found it challenging.
By the way, we got 2 cages for 30 minutes each. Would have been better to go with 1 cage for 1 hour so that there’s longer time and everyone gets to watch one another.
The bat looked weightless when everyone else swung it but I thought it was heavier than I expected; it’s not weightless obviously. I quickly learned that I didn’t know how to hold and swing the bat. But I was already stuck in the cage so let’s just do it.
I started at the slowest speed and managed to hit a few balls but the balls didn’t go anywhere further than 5 meter away from me. LOL. I then increased the speed and the experience was completely different (when I did hit the balls that few times). At a faster speed, I didn’t have to really swing the bat for the ball to travel further than 5 meter away. When the ball hit the bat (not the other way round =P), the ball just bounced off with force. It felt incredible because it looked like I hit the ball well. Haha.
Let’s just say I played continuously for 10 minutes and the balls were released every 9 seconds, I would have swung my arms 66 times. I don’t think I played that much but my arms are definitely hurting now. I definitely worked out a bit there. My heart rate increased a little during the game as well after swinging the bat (and spinning myself) for a good few minutes.
I think It’s A Hit at 1 Utama requires some marketing magic to turn it into a hyped up fitness or social activity. I mean it’s interesting but why have I not heard it after 9 years?! (Reluctant to believe I’ve never heard of this one-of-a-kind place.)
