A couple of months ago, my oldest casually mentioned in a Thank You letter to his grandpa, that he was saving up for a “batting cage,” (wait…wha?) and that the money they sent him for his birthday was going to that.

Now, I’m certain he made that up, having neither had that conversation with his mom or I, and having no idea how much room they take up or how expensive they are. But before I knew it, I had in my grubby little hands, a check from said grandpa. A very generous check to be sure, but not near enough to buy a pre-built batting cage large enough for two Big Leaguers.

And thus did my adventure to build a backyard batting cage begin. Like all great adventures, it began with painstaking research into batting cage. Should I buy a kit with everything you see here necessary to build a cage, or should I buy the pieces a la cart? There are pros and cons to both and I’ll outline them here:

A Kit Cage:
Pros:

• It’s all there
• Yeah, that’s pretty much the main benefit and it’s a biggie.

Cons:

• Unless you can afford to spend upwards of $2,500, you’re going to get something sub-par. To keep costs down, most manufacturers give you a lower quality net since generally speaking the frame poles have to be of such and such quality .

DIY Cage:
Pros:

• Less expensive probably by at least a 1/3
• Yeah, that’s pretty much the main benefit and it’s a biggie (see what I did there?)

Cons:

• Good luck finding one vendor who sells everything at the lowest price. What you’ll find is that one vendor sells the net cheaper, but their connectors are more expensive, etc.
• You will need to find, purchase and transport the frame poles yourself. Yes, your local DIY megamart may have them, but I’m in Atlanta and the closest HD or Lowe’s that had them was about an hour away.

Being frugal and trying to stretch the funds from grandpa, I spent days finding all of the things necessary to build a batting cage. Some of it I got off Amazon.com, but most of it was just random suppliers both online and locally. Here’s a list of everything you’re going to need and you’ll see that it’s much more than just a net and poles. I’ve included links to the products I purchased and as of right now, they are the cheapest, for the same quality, that I could find (and I’m not getting paid for this…hint hint…)

• A quality net. Many online vendors sell a #21 weight net with their cages, which is probably fine if you’re not sure your kid will play ball more than a couple of years. If you have a real player, you’ll want to upgrade to at least #36
• Galvanized frame poles. Some people use PVC pipes, but I think you really need galvanized “Top Rail” fence poles, either in 1 3/8 or 1 5/8 inch. A 45′ net made of #36 material is only about 60lbs, so you don’t need a super duty frame. I found my poles at a local fence supply company at about $4 cheaper per pole than the DIY megamart. Course…I had a truck to transport them home so that saved some $$.
• Frame connectors. Here’s where you need to be careful. Many vendors sell these in “kits” based on the size of your cage, but what some don’t consider is how your frame is designed. For instance, I bought a kit designed for 40-45′ cages (mine is 45′). But they assumed I was building my frame using 15′ poles, so I only needed “x” number of 4-way connectors. But not so! I can’t transport 15′ poles in my truck, so i bought 10.5′ poles, which necessitated two additional 4-way connectors (which I’m still waiting on!). You also need 3-way connectors for the frames on each end.
• Don’t forget about “anchors” because you don’t want your nice, new net blowing away. There are several ways you can go about this. You can pour concrete footings and stick your poles in there, but that’s really permanent. Optionally, you can purchase tie downs and that clamp to your frame bolts. You can also purchase anchors that you nail into the ground and then stick your poles into.
• A tensioning kit that includes wire to string up along your frame to keep your net from sagging.

OK, so you have a net and frame, so you’re done right? Nope. You also still need:

• A home plate so you can reference where to pitch to
• An L-Screen to protect yourself from  your 14-year old when he’s hitting balls back at you in a 10×10 foot tunnel
• A backstop so that you don’t put holes in your net from plunking junk pitches at the batter
• You’ll probably want to put down some kind of ricochet dampening mulch to keep balls from popping back up and killing you.

All told, I’m in for probably $600 more than expected and after more than a month after I started down this path, the cage still isn’t built. But, once it’s up, it’s up and we won’t have to drag out to the local park and hope no one is in the cage.

If you’re looking to build a backyard batting cage, I hope this helps.