All-Star Sports

@BigUmpire Feel free to call my response what you want... but I'm not here to bad mouth any of our competitors, and I wouldn't want them here doing the same. I originally came on here a few years ago to help answer any All-Star specific questions. Plus, there are lots of others out there who have used both and have posted their experiences and comparisons. If you wish to call in and ask me specifics, please do. @jbucks Those guys all get custom MVP4000's where a removable logo is applied. On a standard MVP2500 and MVP4000, the logo's are permanent. Please never ever use a product like Goo-gone on any kind of helmet! Those chemicals can do some harmful stuff to the shells of helmets. If you ever wash the helmet, soap and water goes a long way! Thanks,

@BigUmpire If you're looking for a specific helmet comparison, please call into our office up (800 777 3810). If you have any specific questions on our helmets, I would be more than happy to answer here. Thanks!

Hey Guys! Hope everyone has been doing well! Been a while since I chimed in here! HRM is a great store. Typically, they only list an item if they have it in their own company stock... so when you order, you should feel totally confident that it will ship that same day or the next business day at the latest. The MVP2500 is awesome. If you ever have any questions or issues feel free to call us up (1 800 777 3810). -Brad

Hey guys, We recently came across a situation and we need your help to relay information to other umpires, coaches, and players. We learned that a prototype softball-only face mask somehow made it on to a production helmet and reached the public. As far as we know, this is the only one, but we can never be too careful, so this is why we are coming to you. The only helmets possibly affected are the adult size MVP2500 series. The prototype mask has wider eye opening of 2.5 inches. Such a wide eye opening is not safe for regulation baseballs. Our MVP2500 series headgear should have an eye spacing no larger than 2.0 inches, measured inside to inside. Please see the following link for more information. http://www.all-stars...LERT/index.html Please check your helmets, your crew’s helmets, and any catchers using an MVP2500. We greatly appreciate your help spreading the word. If you have any questions, please ask. Thanks, Brad

Jax, feel free to give me a call. 800 777 3810

Hey Jax, Measure from the center of your knee down to your ankle... that measurement should hopefully come close to the 17 or 18 inch length. The nice thing is that the knee pad is a bit adjustable, so if they are a bit too short for you, you can easily drop the location of the knee pad about an inch.

Perfect guys! Wash on a cold cycle, small amount of detergent. Toss a couple towels in too. Then just let them air dry. IMHO, having a second set of padding for your CP or MVP is a huge advantage.

Hey jflores, You want the mask to be snug, but not too tight. For many people, the mask fits pretty much right out of the box. It's not the kind of thing you want to wear too loose.

After getting some feedback on it, we will likely open it up a bit... but not by a ton. We cut it close on purpose because we really wanted to protect the collar bone area as much as possible. This would be phased in for the 2013 season...

Hey guys, If you want the CPU4000 harness you're just going to have to buy the CPU4000! Kidding aside, the CPU4000 harness (model no:CPUHPRO) will be available early February. Just looked it up. We're not going to have tons of them, so first come first serve. Sorry we didn't bring more in sooner... but we were hoping that umpires with the CPU4000 wouldn't wear out their harness in less than a season! Sorry we over looked you guys looking to modify your gear! -Brad

Oh man, I can assure you that at $2, they would have lost a chunk of cash! Can't blame you guys for trying!

Hey Guys! Thanks for the interest! It’s been fun watching the chatter going on! FYI, there are about five guys on the forum (and a chuck of guys off the forum) who have been testing it since the end of June. If they want, they are more than welcome to post some reviews on the CPU4000. These guys were chosen because they have literally been giving us constant feedback for just about a solid year now. They have been extremely helpful during the development process of this thing. I had a blast interacting with them! Pretty neat. Everyone on this forum has been amazing! We received so much feedback and design inspiration from here! This is technically a new item for the 2012 season. However, we will have limited inventory for the end of 2011 from mid September through November. First come first serve on those! The retail price range is still up in the air because we do not set those, we leave that up to the stores which represent our brand. So, you will have to check with your local All-Star dealers. Unfortunately, it’s so new, no online retail sites will even have it listed yet. Again, thanks for the interest and your patience!

Powdercoating is your best bet if you want to do this yourself. However, Id suggest you give us (All-Star) a call and ask to purchase the MVPACC:BK. We can sell direct for replacement parts like this. I'd also suggest that you replace all the metal brackets, or cage clips as we call them, which secure the cage to the shell. The more times those brackets flex the weaker they can get... and they flex when you remove the cage from the helmet. Hope this helps! -Brad

boyinr is right. No such thing as PUC pads. Only LUC. LUC stands for Lightweight UltraCool. Basically, a fancy way of saying breathable and fast drying. That link for the pads will work perfectly. They don't show a picture, but that model number is correct.

Harnesses are the easiest things to change. The harness shown is what most catchers want because it grips skull caps fantastically. I gauarantee that if you are interested in it, you can call Lesters and ask if he can swap the harness for you.

Thanks Lefty! I'm shooting you a PM! While you're here, I have two of these frames, but do you know where I can purchase just the ultra cool pads? http://www.baseballp...acool-Pads.html I'd give Rex a call at Between The Lines. Tell him you want the PFM25LUC pads. He should be able to give you a price and get us the order. We'll then ship direct to you. FYI, we have plenty of black. You can also get them directly from us by calling up customer service... but I always would rather have customers go through the stores that support us first. Thanks! They're great pads!

Thanks Lefty! I'm shooting you a PM!

When we have people e-mail in to customer service asking about this style of mask, we typically recommend that they discontinue using it. The biggest reason is that these masks are older and the material used in these masks break down over time... especially if it is 10 years old. The mask is constructed using lots of little fibers which is one reason the mask is so strong. But on the flip side, each time those fibers are flexed, bent, stretched... they weaken. The mask may show no sign of weakness until one day, when the fibers can't take anymore abuse, it cracks.

Yes, the leg guards are in fact on a similar time table. Sorry guys, wish everything happened faster. It's great though because we can get these things on some guys for feedback over the summer an to help work out the bugs. Then changes can be made if needed by the time they hit the stores. Same thing goes with lots of our catchers equipment...normally a few pro players and some minor league guys we are close with will have any new chest protectors, leg guards..basically anything before the actual product goes out to the public. It is just another check to make sure that we have things right. Thanks for asking! In Fort Myers,-brad

Yes. If you ever desire to do this just shoot me a message through this forum. Slo did this exact thing last fall. -Brad

Thanks for the feedback. Here is just a bit of info on our timeline and how things work for us. Last summer (2010) we gathered LOTS of valuable information about umpire chest protectors and spoke to many umpires about what their dream chest protector would be. From that point, we start prototyping, testing, and buidling samples. The goal is to have a completed "production ready" design by this time of the year (2011) so that we can go out and show stores... so that they hopefully buy it from us... so that they can sell it to you. Technically, this is not going to be available to the public until late 2011 or by the 2012 season. Things don't happen very fast. If you're in the market now, you may not want to wait for one of ours. Thanks!

YES. But I cant post too much right now. You will see something within the next couple months.

Thanks for asking! Lets start with ethe Hollow Steel MVP4000UMP:SL This is a steel cage... and just like any other steel cage, if it takes enough of an impact or many repeated impacts, it will bend. The hollow steel cage is lighter than our standard I-Bar steel cage and also more durable. This cage also has I-Bar Vision. The MVP4000UMP:TI titanium cage is an insanely strong cage. Just a little back story... We don't use a pure titanium because when we were first testing it out the titanium bent wayyy to easily fo us. Higher cost and less durability meant that we wern't going to do it. But we kept looking for something better. What we came up with is a Titanium Alloy, which is just as light but much more stronger. I have never seen a TI cage returned to us that has bent or broken in any way. In our testing, for both the traditional masks and the MVP helmets, the titanium just doesn't bend. We can shoot it so many times at ball speeds over 100MPH and after testing it, you would hardly even know that it had been hit. For the pro players who choose wear our facemasks, we give them replacement padding everyear to put on their TI cages. In fact, this morning, CB Bucknor's mask just came back to be reconditioned, we'll swap the padding out, clean it up a bit, but the mask will go back to him with the same titanium cage that was on it. Attached are two images showing the difference in cages. As you can see, the SL cage is a tad thicker than the TI. Hope this helps! If you have any questions feel free to ask! FYI, I am heading down to spring training tomorrow morning for the next week, so I may not be as active on here as I would like. It's a tough job talking shop with MLB catchers ;)

Hi Guys, To make a long story short, Yes... you will see some UA masks and helmets which do infact look like All-Star designs. A few years ago they were interested in catcher's gear, surveyed a bunch of pro players about what gear they would want to wear if the deciding factor was only the equipment, and All-Star's name came up more often than not. For catchers, they have a different style for their CP's and LG's. The masks are our styles though. What does this mean for you? Well, not that much... Depends what brand you want to support. I think that most of you guys know what you want and what works best for you. Hope this helps I'll be on the road the next few weeks so sorry if my posts are a bit spotty! I'm do my best to check back here as often as possible. Thanks Guys!

Great feedback, mrm! Unfortunately, there isn't much we can do about it for this season but it can certainly be a change for next! There are a few guys out there who own them now who maybe able to try this out... I know when I have worn the mask and attached the harness to the outside ears, I never had an issue putting it on or having them drop when wearing it. When I put it on I would use two hands, one hand holding the cage and the other pulling the harness back around my head. When the mask was off and if the harness fell to a different part of the ear ring, a simple tug when putting it on would pull it into position. But if you want it, and others would like it too, it is not a difficult thing to add to the mask. Thanks for the feedback! This is great stuff to hear so that we can continue improving our equipment!