Everything You Need to PLAY BALL!
Baseball Express
All Baseball. All the time...That's the motto for Baseball Express, and that sums it up really well. This is a great place to look for anything related to playing baseball.
Although there are many good general sports stores online, I like to shop at Baseball Express. It's kind of like shopping at Hall Mark for a card vs. going to Wal-Mart. A super store can be great, but sometimes I prefer a specialty shop where I can click in and look at the things I want without being distracted by the things I may accidentally buy. I am bad about impulse and sale purchases )-:
My son is a baseball player. I could find the things he needed locally during the T-ball and coach pitch years, but now that he is older...it's hard to get the things that he needs or wants. He pitches, and I needed a catcher's mitt. Caleb broke my ring through the regular glove, so I defiantly needed more padding. There were only 2 catcher's gloves to pick from here in town, and neither one worked well with my fingers being long but slim. The ball pants sell out here, so if I don't get to the store when the order comes in, then Caleb has no pants (or the wrong color). Forget about batting gloves. They never have the right size when I go to town.
I shopped some at Fog Dog and Dick's Sporting Goods online. Both stores are good (and I have reviews on both), but there are a lot of items related to all kinds of sports. It takes longer at a big sports store, and I have trouble finding just what I want to buy sometimes.
Baseball Express is perfect for baseball shopping. They have over 4000 products all related to baseball, so the selection is terrific. I have not looked for anything that I could not find. Sometimes I have to think about the search words. I needed a pitcher's practice screen, but I didn't know what that was called. I tried several words before I got to training and then found several types of contraptions for pitching practice.
When I found the items, I still was not sure which one I should get. They had general details, but they didn't tell me ages on all the items or if Caleb would knock down the pitching tents at age 12. I called on Sunday to Texas to the 800 number. I didn't really expect to catch anyone in, but a man answered and helped me decide what to buy.
I guess they get some very confused people calling for help buying baseball gear. When I said that I needed to buy my son something to throw balls at, the man asked if perhaps I might need a glove. I had to laugh about that. The guy wasn't being sarcastic...just helpful and really nice. I gave him the product numbers then, and he figured out what I had in mind. I am sure he was thankful that I knew about gloves at least.
Though the tent items were more expensive, the customer service guy said that Caleb probably wanted the tarp, which was about half the price. He explained that the tents could be knocked over with hard throws and that the pitching targets on them are not as exact as with the tarp. That was just what I needed to know. It would be nice if the customer service guy could write some information to go on the site, because he knew just what to suggest.
The tarp item was on back order, which the customer help guy told me. It was also listed as out of stock on the site, so they do update well. He told me when it would be in, how many days to ship, and gave me the number to track. UPDATE: They said it would be mid-April. That was OK. It came in on April 3. Boy, I love this place.
The tarp is the biggest item I've bought, but I do get some of the smaller items at Baseball Express too. They have a good selection of pants and also the sliding pants, which are like longer underwear and hold the cup. The selection on bats is really good, and they have some nice baseball bags. Ball hats and t-shirt/jerseys for all the baseball teams are available. They have some really cute novelty baseball shirts like one with American flags printed over balls with "American Classic" on the front.
Prices are good. The Omaha Gold bat was a little cheaper at a very small online store, but I searched for several days to get the $20 less on that. Jerseys run $50 to $60 at full price, and novelty t-shirts are only $12.95 to $14.95. Other items run right in line with what I would pay around here with some a little less and some a little more.
Shipping is fair. It is $6.95 for the small under-$50 orders I tend to make. The max on shipping by ground is $14.95 for $300 and over with a few items having an extra charge for high weight.
If an item is in stock, then it takes about a week. If it's not in stock, then they tell you when it is scheduled to come in. You can decide if you can wait or not. Some things like the practice pants really can't wait, but I've never seen those out of stock at Baseball Express.
If you play baseball or if you have kids who play ball, then I would invite you to check out Baseball Express. They have most everything you could think of and some things you would not even think of like paint that will spray upside down to make the lines in the grass (and won't hurt the grass either).
