Former Major League pitcher opens batting cages in Fall River
FALL RIVER — When his friend Jimmy Raposa showed him the space and shared the idea, Allen Levrault needed all of five seconds to say yes.
That was two months ago. And if all goes well, Levrault, the Westport High School Athletics Hall of Famer and former Major League pitcher, and Raposa, owner of Red Circle Firearms Tactical Firearms Academy in the city, will have a baseball/softball batting and pitching indoor facility ready to open for business on or around Dec. 18.
Hauss Power Batting Cages, owned by Vanessa Levrault, Allen’s wife, is located at 847 Pleasant St., across the street from PriceRite, in the mill that formerly housed the discount book store and now houses Fall River Snack Factory.
Inside The Park, the baseball/softball facility which operated in the city for many years, recently relocated to New Bedford after the mill building where it was housed (Plymouth Avenue and Route 195) was sold.
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Raposa came up with the baseball/softball facility idea. He invited his friend Levrault (their sons play sports together) to visit the third-floor, 35,000-square-foot mill space with the 17-foot-high ceiling. With Levrault on site, Raposa told the man known as Hauss to picture the area with batting cages.
“I loved it,” Levrault said. “I said this is the real deal.”
During his professional playing days, Levrault had owned a small (three pitching machines) facility with Lance Machado in the city.
Post-baseball, marriage and family and work trumped running a facility. Now a manager at Electric Boat/General Dynamics and father of Leeland, 10, and Penelope, 8, Levrault has again been bitten by the bug.
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“I’m excited because he’s excited,” said Vanessa Levrault, associate executive director at the Stoico/First Fed YMCA in Swansea. “He wants to do it for the kids. He wants to get the kids in the city, regardless of their zip code. I think Allen has wanted to do this for many years.”
Upon its opening, Raposa said, Hauss Powwa Batting Cages will feature nine cages, four major league (60 feet, 6 inches) mounds, two Little League (45-50 feet) mounds, an infield and four television/Xbox setups so the young and young at heart can play MLB. The facility will be able to host birthday parties.
“We’re really here for the kids,” Raposa said. “It’s somewhere where they can have an outlet.”
Allen Levrault said for now Hauss Power will use about half of the 35,000 square feet with hopes of using more, perhaps all, of it in the future. Levrault and Raposa themselves have been doing most of the labor to transform the mill space into their facility.
A professional baseball player from 1996 through 2004, Levrault played parts of three seasons (two with Milwaukee, one with Florida) in Major League Baseball. He pitched 130-2/3 innings with Milwaukee in 2001 and earned a World Series ring with Florida in 2003. Levrault used to give pitching lessons at Inside the Park.
He said got his nickname "Hauss" from Marc Pavao, the Durfee High School graduate and former head baseball coach at Barry University in Florida.