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(/🧼🪣 We all need to remember that umpires are human. And given it's an avocation that comes with a lot of social pressure before even stepping on to the field, I can easily imagine the umpire didn't want to be "that guy" in the initial encounter and then rethought himself. "What battles to fight?" is a given in any interaction. I don't let buckets on the field. Am I in the majority of the broad umpire community in my area (which spans from kids 1 year older than the game up to LLWS) - no. But I do it. Do I get my laser level out to see if the bucket is 1 inch beyond the fence line? No. Are there times where fields where he fence line ends 20 feet beyond the base and coaches go out there to sit on a bucket partially in the field of play and I let it go? Yes, especially if everything else is going well. As UIC, on field or off field, if F2 doesn't have a dangle, will I stop the game until they get one? Yes. It's a LL safety issue, full stop. No argument is going to work with me on why we'll play without one. Do I get a stopwatch out to measure off 1 minute between innings? No. Never even considered it but I do keep the team moving along. My point is, everyone picks what to enforce to the letter and what not to. This umpire went lax and then rethought himself. Next time, he'll remove the bat straightaway. Not giving a crap what someone else thinks can help an umpire be great. It can also be their downfall. Everyone is human. Humans grow and learn. I can promise you every umpire in the world is still learning - including MLB. To borrow from @Richvee "If you're not getting better, you're getting worse." 🧼🪣/)

I would add that's it a good idea to reinforce the IFF after it's touched or settles fair with, "Batter's out, he's still out!" If the runners go after that, then it's doubly on them.

The player wasn't ejected, probably, because the umpire allowed him to use the bat. You can't punish someone when you allowed the act to happen. For the bat itself, 'Older' meaning, 1980's older or 2015 older? 'Older' tells me nothing. I don't know Babe Ruth rules however, NHFS states that the bat be a drop 3 and has a BBCOR stamp on it - among other specifications. A 2015 older bat would probably has a BBCOR stamp on it, whereas, the 1980's bat wouldn't. I would be surprised Babe Ruth would require a USA brand on it and not a BBCOR one. Are you mistaken? The umpire can ask a coach or player a multitude of things not to do that aren't specifically in the rule book. If he changed his mind due to safety concerns, why are we faulting him? This reeks of sour grapes. Possibly the coach catching the player of picking his wife's petunias and he wanted the 14yo ejected. But, the big question is what did the batter do at that at-bat? Hit a grand slam to win the game in the first inning?

I wasn't thinking of doubling it up to supplement it. I was thinking more of put it in the front, so it does it's job the way it's supposed to as it. As a secondary function, it would help size the fit just a bit, instead of me needing that 1/8th inch sweat liner. I was more looking at it from a, "is this going to hurt the D30 role it's designed for by place it over the already existing 'thin' Rawlings pad?" There was a very specific mouthguard back in the day, Protec Dent, or something like that, that required the hard teeth background to perform it's action. It had perforated holes in the guard to disperse impact across your jaw. The mouthguard was extremely hard compared to other football mouthguards, the big soft rubber ones, but when a ball would impact it, it spread the impact across a wider area and would keep your teeth in tact. But if the backing surface of it was too soft, it wouldn't perform correctly, and was MORE dangerous than wearing nearly nothing as a guard at all. Now, understanding that you didn't invent D30, and you don't want to make any official claims...you also know infinitely more about it than most of us, and that opinion is valued.

You see where I put that bike sweat liner in the front?- That bike D30 that was linked, has it's own sticky stuff attached that just peels, and boom, it sticks. After seeing this, I've thought about just using that D30 to the front of the mask instead of the little pad strip that I use. Now, I understand, like you said, it would be a disservice to double it up with the default Rawlings pad. But, this seems like a super easy 'fix/addition' to the pleather Rawlings pad in the front. Add the D30 to it to give it better up front protection, and a little bit of sizing detail. Eh? (I'm just trying to clarify that I don't want you to send me to padding purgatory for doubling it up)

[deleted because embarrassed what I wrote.]