Bradley steps down from duties at ASU to move into private business

Todd Bradley recently stepped down as the head softball coach at Alabama State. He is currently working with a new baseball and softball academy in Montgomery. (Courtesy ASU athletics)

By TIM GAYLE

Former Alabama State softball coach Todd Bradley had just completed his 24th season as a collegiate coach when he decided it was time to retire from the game. Just as quickly, Bradley found a new outlet for his love of the sport.

D-BAT Baseball and Softball Academy opened in Montgomery Commons on the Eastern Boulevard in early April and Bradley, as the organization’s new general manager, is trying to promote the Capital City’s newest indoor batting cages. 

“We had a conversation when they were first coming in, because I was always looking for a place that we could train at,” Bradley said. “From that point, it came to a mutual agreement where we were all trying to grow the game. When I decided to retire, it made sense -- still around the game, still an opportunity to help, just in a different way.”

D-Bat Montgomery, as it’s called, offers the latest technology in pitching machines, a pro shop that offers an array of bats, gloves and batting gloves and instructors ready to supply either materials or instruction to the area’s budding baseball and softball enthusiasts. 

“The biggest thing with D-Bat is they’re not necessarily partnering with any particular team or organization,” Bradley said, “but what we’d like is for people in the area to know there’s a resource here where you can bring your players individually or as a group and still be able to get better and have a facility they can train in all the time.

“Other facilities are only open on certain days. We’re open seven days a week. You have the ability to come in and train seven days a week if that’s something you want to do.”

The facility features instructors trained in both baseball and softball, but they’re also specialists who have played the game all their lives, like Altamon Roberts, who played baseball at Robert E. Lee High and more recently at Alabama A&M, or Tori Lambert, who just completed her senior season as Auburn University Montgomery’s catcher.  

“This past spring, I was in here catching a pitcher and they just mentioned they needed more instructors,” Lambert said. “I want to do some type of coaching in my future. I think every instructor has to find their niche, how to go about it, how to explain it, what makes sense. I’ve had dozens of instructors in my life and every single one of them has done it different, so finding a way that works for me has been interesting because I try to take the best parts of every coach I’ve ever had.”

The facility also includes a pitching area, a lounge for parents who are waiting on younger participants and a meeting area where league meetings or birthday parties can be held. 

Participants can use the batting cages by purchasing credits or they can join D-BAT Montgomery with a gold or platinum membership that provides discounts on equipment in the pro shop.  

“They can purchase credits,” Bradley said. “It prints them a QR code they can use in the (pitching) machines. One credit is about 15 pitches. What we typically sell is 10 credits for 25 dollars. That’s what makes us unique. If you had a platinum membership, you would have unlimited credits. If you had gold membership, you’d get 15 credits per day. That’s a ton of swings.”

The pitching machines are programmed for fastballs, curveballs or various locations for the batter if a parent or fellow participant wants to provide a test to those using the machine. 

Bradley said his hope is for the instructors to travel to events in the community to promote the advantages of using D-BAT Montgomery. Bradley said his target audience is “a younger player who is just starting out, a younger player who’s played quite a while, a high school player, a college player, anybody who is trying to take their game to the next level.”

Meanwhile, the former softball coach is trying to get adjusted to his new indoor job. 

“It’s funny,” Bradley said. “I’ll go home and my wife will ask, ‘How do you like it?’ I don’t even know yet. The thing I woke up doing for the last 24 years, I knew what to expect, what was going on. Then the landscape changes. I’m not used to signing people up, taking money, giving change. It’s different because I don’t know it like I knew coaching.”

D-BAT Baseball and Softball Academy is located at 3729 Eastern Blvd. For more information, call (334) 694-3228.