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Tony Wyss wants kids of all backgrounds to be able to enjoy baseball and benefit from the life lessons the sport teaches.
“This idea that you need to be [from] some rich family to get better at baseball – I just want to shoot it down,” said Wyss, owner of Mashlab in Liberty Hill.
He noted that having more money for advanced training gives athletes from wealthier families an advantage.
“I want to be different,” he said.
The overview
“We’re a really encouraging environment,” Wyss said, noting that boys and girls alike practice at the batting cage facility.
The business aims to show kids a more fun side of baseball by helping them get hits and have fun in games.
“It’s a fun sport, but [it’s a bummer] when you’re striking out and you’re bummed out at the end of the bench and you’re not contributing,” he said.
Wyss said things progressed organically after opening in 2022. More and more people showed interest as word spread about the facility.
One of the things that upped business and expanded Mashlab’s reputation in the community was starting Friday Night Lights in 2023. Mashlab brings in former college and professional-level pitchers for young athletes to face off against on Fridays.
“The Friday Night Lights thing blew it up. We went from 40 members to over 100,” Wyss said.
He said the concept pits 12- and 13-year-olds against adult athletes to get them used to a higher level of play, so when the young players get up to bat against other players their own age, it’s less daunting.
Dig deeper
One of Mashlab’s focuses is quality instruction from coaches who are engaged.
“We’re meeting the kids where they’re at, and then upping it a notch,” Wyss said.
If there are multiple kids of different skill levels in one class, coaches will adjust intensity based on which player they are working with.
What else?
The better someone is at baseball, the more fun it can be, Wyss said. But the training needed to improve can be expensive, so players from wealthier families often end up being able to be better. After facing his own struggles growing up, Wyss said he wants to bring out the talent in players who might not have honed their skills otherwise.
“We think that there’s a lot of kids out there that have the potential to do a lot of great things on the field if they just had the opportunity to get some more advanced training," Wyss said.
