MadMax

Ask @JimKirk about my 3N2 fiasco… keep in mind, I see Professional – uppercase “P” – velocities, and I had 2 pair of 3N2 toe caps shatter on me. One in particular physically felt like if you put a lightbulb 💡 in a leather glove, then hit it with a hammer, and then re-feel the leather glove. Yikes. I need something with a lot more reliability. I had the same thing happen with NB lows. I then began duct-taping the rim preemptively, and it worked rather well… at least as long as the shoes lasted before they finally “slicked” the bottom, and I had a chance to buy-&-try the Mizuno Japan 🇯🇵 11GU1800(?). I then sold the NBs to a new umpire, and he understood why I had duct tape on them, and with his just starting out, he was fine with the little traction left. But, @NavyBlue has the right idea.

SOLD! And with that, I can lock the truck, and I’m rolling from Phoenix to Chicago. I’m driving the truck containing the effects and household of @Mr Ump. Thanks @ump7tony.

Colleagues- I’m looking at 4 pairs of Plate Shoes, in Very Good Used Condition. This is an Umpire Estate Sale, and must go! I don’t have space on the truck, and it’s pointless for them to sit in storage for 6 months. All are Size 10. - Mizuno USA 11GU2300 - New Balance MB460v2 (w/MLB logo), white N, low-tops - New Balance MB460v2 (w/MLB logo), black N, low-tops - New Balance MB460v2 (w/MLB logo), black N, mid-tops All proceeds go to the departed Umpire’s family fund. Please message me promptly, and I can get these sent out in the next 24 hours. I start up the truck to leave tomorrow morning!!

Of course, unless the name on your door is “3N2”, if you don’t have the MLB logo on your products, you are largely ignored, overlooked, or disregarded as being a viable producer of baseball (umpire, in this case) gear and uniform pieces. Despite there being several better (and more available) options, which umpire shirt did everyone seek out? Majestic. Which CP has (gob-smackingly!) managed to endure its mediocre materials and pathetic progression despite the presence of nearly a dozen far superior models? Wilson… only because it has Lou Gehrig’s caricature on it. 🙄 And that brings us to footwear. Again, despite there being no official mandate across all amateur and professional (lowercase “p”) baseball as to which base shoes to wear, what brand was it that everyone sought out? New Balance. Why? Was it because they were the most supportive, or had the best traction, or helped you keep track of outs? No, it was because the MLBUs had ‘em! Then ca. 2019, Nike assumed the MLB contract, taking over from UnderArmour (who vacated it), and forcing New Balance out. Now, some reason can be attributed to supply chain issues of 2021, but NB slashed most of their baseball umpire shoe lineup, taking the plate shoes from four variations to two (or is it now one?), and their base shoes from 6-7 to 2. And, glaringly, all without the MLB logo on them. Meanwhile, what’s become the “darling” of Umpires? Jordans. Nike product. So when I say that New Balance is “out of baseball”, I mean they are out of Professional baseball, and they are under no obligation to progress models of footwear for us, or even to continue offering them, for that matter. We’re operating on borrowed time, guys.

@dumbdumb, this isn’t an actual invention. This is some guy filing an invention idea, getting it “documented” so that if/when MLB does attempt to augment umpires with glasses, this guy “gets paid”. It’s idea squatting. Same phenomenon happened in the late 90s / early 00s with domain name squatting. This isn’t for us (amateur umpires), directly. This isn’t for our benefit. This is for a (hopeful) paycheck.

MSBL & NABA both use a NCAA-esque FPSR, despite using OBR for (nearly) everything else. OBR's standards for contact mitigation is significantly different than these two adult amateur environments. They also don't count mound visits, except if it involves the team captain ("head coach") or another teammate who enters the playing field from the bench. 2nd "actual visit" in the same inning → change the pitcher. Pitch-com; there ain't no way they'd have it. Fraternization (with or amongst the crowd, or other players); nowhere near as restrictive and draconian in the amateur game.

It’s not so much an outright rule, but more of an analogy derived from a/the rule. Let’s hop around the diamond, shall we? Assume the base is occupied, and that all feints / throws are direct, w/o stepping off or disengaging first. Can you feint to 1B? No, in all codes. You must throw to the base. Thus, you must throw to the fielder covering the Runner at the base (R1). Can you feint to 3B? No, in OBR and NCAA, you cannot. Therefore, if you do throw, just like at 1B, you must throw to the base (granted, there are violation interpretations on where the fielder is when receives the throw). However, in NFHS, you can (still) feint towards 3B. Thus, any throw towards 3B (in NFHS) has no requirement on where the fielder receives it… because F1 didn’t have to throw to begin with. Now, to 2B… in all codes, you can feint to 2B, without any requirement to throw. The act of stepping / making a move towards 2B is the legal disengagement. With that act, F1 is now a fielder, and can throw “anywhere”. There just happens to be an additional wrinkle each in the OBR and NCAA codes. - In OBR, when using Time Clock Rules, it counts against the number of disengagements; the 3rd disengagement without put-out of a/the Runner → Balk. - in NCAA, a disengagement without throw is marked as a “reset”. The 2nd marked reset → Ball added to the count. In order to prohibit defenses from skirting the rule, and throwing to a fielder not in any position to make a play on the Runner (typically R2), NCAA authorized a Ball penalty (not a Balk penalty) to be directly applied.

A game?! Buddy, I’ve been using them for the past 16 days straight, with a Plate game every day of my 2 daily games. 🫩 … annnnnd, every day has been over 80°, tipping more towards 90°. 🥵 5 more days to go! The weight, especially when equipped to the Mirage or the Trace (Davis’s rendition of the ZRO-G), makes it feel on-par with an aluminum (Wilson DynAlum, Diamond iX3) equipped with TWs or Doeskin pads. We have to remember, the Mirage frame is the lightest of the 3 cast-magnesium frames on the market. The Rampage’s standard stock pads are laughable, while the FM4K-Mag’s are substantially oversized in volume. The Davis cores are denser, and because of their laminate construction (instead of homogenous), they perform more dynamically, without “crowding your face” like the All-Stars tend to. Prior to getting the Davis cores & socks, I had equipped my Mirage and my Rampages (2 of them) with WindPacts, thereby achieving the lightest mask(s) in the business – you can’t beat air!! I also had my CanaryCage equipped with TWs, and a FM4K Mag equipped with LUC-Mags. And, by feel and feel only, I actually regarded the Canary w/ TWs as my “heaviest” mask. I wouldn’t avoid using any of the 5, but I began using the FM4K-Mag less and less, particularly because of the freer and less restricted sightlines with the Mirage (and the safety of the lengthened XCG!), and the experience of breaking out in zits and rashes due to irritation from the LUC-Mag pads. By mentioning the break-outs with the LUC-Mag pads, this is where I’ve become especially fond of the lattice-mesh padsocks. At least thru the 16 games so far, I’ve shaved twice, and haven’t had any irritation, break-outs, or stubble snags. I also have the micro-suede padsocks, and I wasn’t as much of a fan. That could be because I was never a big fan of leather, either, and I was already projecting my routine use of the padcores in warm-hot temperatures. I dare say, the Davis padsock lattice-mesh is a better feel than the Team Wendy’s technical fabric, and that’s saying a lot. Thanks for doing this. I, too, feel underwhelmed. The TW Zorbium pads are just minimally-shaped lumps. Certainly, they are much better and have more shape than the formless sausages of Wilson, but they’ve got nothing on the All-Stars and Honig’s pads… which @DerekGDS really pursued with gusto when guiding the design process on the pads we now have. That’s outstanding to hear… I really needed this to happen. This sets up three paths to progress into: Reconditioning and rejuvenating “dead” TW pads; harvesting the cores, cleansing them (properly), and encasing them in padsocks. Pushing Derek to make (more! more! more!!) padsocks in sand/tan, sky blue, navy (for you poor bastages)… digital camo(?)… carbon-fiber print(?)… Formulating a concept brief for WindPact.

I'm starting to read / see / think that our version of a Voight-Kampff Test is in order...

While I'm not one to argue with my esteemed gear-geek colleague @wolfe_man, I'm looking at taking the casing off the Zorbium completely, thus "freeing" the Zorbium. Here's why: I have yet to actually see the construct of the Team Wendy mask pads in person; I've always been chickensh!t to open one up or dissect it, because they're expensive, and I don't know how to sew so as to rebuild a casing for it (with tabs, no less). While I've had no qualms about cutting apart everyone else's pads (Force3's are a trip) so as to reveal just how shoddily they're constructed, I just can't bring myself to do so with a set of Team Wendy's... regardless of how beaten / weathered / damaged the casings are. Now that we have PadSocks on the market, I have a method of... well... (potentially) not losing that valuable Zorbium foam core. I have a hunch that with proper cleansing and (pro)long(ed) drying time, possibly paired with silica beads in a sarcophagus (airtight container), that the loft and "cushiness" of Zorbium can be recovered. What causes them to compress and harden is the presence of sweat, salt, and moisture "sticking around" in the Zorbium. Of course, this is exacerbated by using laundry detergents to launder the pads; which one does when the pad casings get tarnished. Tarnished pads are (potential) demerits for umpires, and the only real tell-tale sign that pads "need to be changed". The problem here is that cleansing with a technical soap doesn't necessarily remove the red clay marks on the casing, or the salt stains, or the dip-juice stains; afflictions to the casings that often preclude the directive or decision to replace one's pads. There will be weight and fit "savings" by eliminating the tabs and casing. Throughout my study and experimentation with masks (and mask pads), and my consultations with @DerekGDS, we've endeavored to hit the balance point between effort and effectiveness – how much effort has to be put in by the manufacturer and the user vs. how effective the resulting product will be... especially over time (frequency of games and weeks, months, years). The fondness for Team Wendy's is a combination of feel and the proven source (FTWDK Team Wendy's origin story is anti-TBI), and while they have their shortcomings (*cough* don't do/feel well in cold temperatures *cough cough*), they are argued as "the best" mask pads formerly on the market. By comparison, there is nothing – no research, no testing, no evidence neither empirical nor logical – to demonstrate that Wilson MemFoams are "better" than Team Wendy's... yet, MemFoams are purchased and used because "they feel good". So yes, feel is a big part of it. My hope with the new Davis mask pad system (cores and socks) that they not only "feel great", and they have the technical pedigree to assuage any concerns, but they also have the features and benefits that convince you to use them prolifically for season after season.

It is, and they haven’t (and please, don’t cause my eye to twitch unmercifully by conjoining All-Star and the YelloW Slug on anything, even whimsical). Wegner (#14) and Emil Jimenez (#82) are the only Umpires to wear Force3 Defender TMs. In the past, Wegner has worn re-labeled pads (with yellow W so as to receive the payoff / “hush” money), but the ones worn for his postseason rig (which has to support a camera, transmitter, and battery pack) are, as @JSam21 notes, All-Star LUC-Mags. You can’t hide the center-split tabs… which are unused on a Defender.

Umperials, we lost a fellow umpire and member of U-E, and we of the Wake lost a fellow Vulture on Wednesday. @Mr Ump, AKA Andre, originally of Chicago. He was 68. If anyone who knew him need details, please message me.

That’s the exact set I used.

Wizz, I’ll produce a series of more substantial photos on how to run the strap thru each g-hook so that it grabs without needing tape. Also consider, you might be using the stock standard (and thicker) elastic Force3 placed on the Ultimates; in my case, I only have one strap each that is still stock-standard, while the other three per shinguard are @Razzer’s UmpLife SG harnesses – the elastic is thinner.

Say goodbye to metal rings & those stupid clips! Say sayonara to side-release buckles (SRBs) and the potential repair / replacement hassles! G-hooks. G-hooks are the answer: It does involve destroying the existing fastener (plastic SRBs are killed best with a diagonal shear / cutter; metal D-rings with a heavy-gauge wire cutter or thin-gauge bolt cutter). But as long as you leave the webbing loops intact, the G-hooks have something to secure to. They're lower profile, monstrously strong, very light, and since they're aluminum, won't corrode (rust) nor squeak.