MadMax

That’s a huuuuuuuge win. 🏆 Really, the product was never the problem; it was the delivery. 📦

Heh. I wear the closest thing to perfect right now – the Schutt-Adams MaXV w/ an UmpLife RayFlex harness. I happened to get mine in its inaugural batch in 2015 (hence why it's called the XV), so it has the real-deal D3O in it. Tough as nails, well-ventilated, resilient, fits me (near) perfectly, and completely hydrophobic – it sheds water instantly, and doesn't hold it, weighing me down. The first batch(es) of XVs had a horrible harness, since rectified, and the breastplate is a tad bit too broad for my liking, but all in all, this has been irreplaceable in my gear arsenal. Sure, I gave the Cobalt a serious consideration, and there are some very admirable qualities to it, but I feel no less protected in my XV. The only other CP on the market that I get a twinge of envy for is the Mizuno, but that's that foreign, exotic allure – the swag factor – more than anything else. So, my perfect, ideal CP would be based around a ventilated TPU-EVA laminate foam jacket that is segmented so as to conform to your body. Then, the carapace plates are not only ventilated, but also faceted... or, more akin to dragon scales. I know, I know, the weight starts to add up, but I'm describing perfection. I keep looking at Motocross body armor: See how ventilated these are? Why do our baseball CPs have to be solid plates??! When has a baseball changed its circumference from 9 inches? @Majordave used to tease about designing UmpTrooper armor (ie. just like a Star Wars stormtrooper)... with the advance of materials and technology, we can step even closer to something as comprehensive as that. I fully acknowledge that there will never be a "perfect CP", or any piece of protective equipment for that matter, for everyone. Each person's requirements, dimensions, and choices are different. Why I carry around so much ire and contempt for Wilson is due to how they produce their products, how they price them, and how they treat us. Do they treat us as A) users? B) customers? or simply C) purchasers? Given Wilson's history with the last 25 years, in regards to protective gear for umpires, I have to answer C. To be fair, they're not alone; in fact, it's typically indicative and symptomatic of international corporations, especially one operating as an asset of a 🤬 private-equity group. To your ( @Replacematt ) exact point... it's profit. The margins beyond costs is profit. But that's the point of my argument – those profits are distributed to private equity portfolios and shareholder dividends, and not reinvested into R&D, or user/customer cultivation (because they see us as mere purchasers). It cannot – can not – be that developing and employing better materials is cost prohibitive. When Wilson produces and prices a Wilson Platinum at $215, and Diamond rolls out a clone of it – with user-benefiting improvements – and prices it at $99, it begs the question... where does the $116 go??!! So yes, I'm pleased to see +POS (seemingly) rise from the dead. It was once a dynamic, innovative producer in our Officiating Gear space. I'll cheer for them, and openly look forward to reviewing and giving consideration to any new gear that they'll bring to market in the coming months / year. I say the same for Douglas (even though I have no reason to purchase their gear), and All-Star (because unlike Wilson, they have demonstrated they are much more in the A&B camp than C), and Honig's, and Great Call, and Champion, and Champro... and last, but certainly not least, Gerry Davis. I fervently believe that, based on my dealings with @DerekGDS, my next, and likely last, core gear items will have the GD plate logo on them 😁.

My esteemed colleague @DerekGDS answered that, dead-on ta boot. ABS – or, Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene – is another thermoplastic copolymer extensively used by human industry. Relevant to our discussion here, both have been used for sporting goods gear for quite some time, often being each other's alternatives. ABS "won out" in the production of football and baseball helmets because of its ease of production, and low cost on overall systemic investment. In other words, when you're doing a butt-load (or, s#!t-ton, as one of my favorite colleagues has famously said) of similar products, it makes sense to use ABS for everything... that whole "economy of scale". So, thousands upon thousands of baseball helmets... and football helmets... and football shoulder pad sets... and catchers' shinguard sets... ... and umpire chest protectors ... all done in ABS. Why? Because it's cheap. One of the characteristics that HDPE has over ABS is that is denser... so to accomplish the same shape, the material can be thinner. HDPE can also hold a cast shape more effectively. So, as it applies to umpire chest protectors, you'll notice that the All-Star Cobalt CP plates are more shapely, better defined, and look more like MX / BX (cycling) body armor, where body-conforming shapes, and "low profile" (ie. no bulk) is heavily desired. In contrast, you'll see how ambiguous and generic the plate shapes are on the Wilson Gold, the Wilson Platinum, the Wilson Charcoal, the Douglas, the Diamond Pro, etc. All ABS -cast units. This unwieldy bulkiness is further compounded by the packaging and shipping practices of the manufacturers, the vendors, and ultimately, the users – when trained, ABS will begin to take on the shape of stability. If a Wilson Platinum is packaged and shipped to be as flat as possible so as to fit as many CP units into a container as possible, and then piled on a stockroom shelf under several other units, and then sold to a user who just stashes it – flat – in the bottom of their gear bag under the weight of the rest of their gear... how do you think the CP is going to look??! I'm not saying that umpire gear has to be more costly, and use premium, expensive materials. But could we at least ask the questions as to why a manufacturer uses a particular material or technology instead of another? When you put all the factors on the board, the resulting price of a unit such as the All-Star Cobalt is somewhat justified; in contrast, the resulting price of a Wilson Gold sure ain't. ... And this is why I hold them in such contempt. Cuz when you consider the +POS Cobra, you see that Dan Parsons included HDPE, a newly designed harness, and 5-layer laminate foam, and trotted that thing out there at $99! ... Ninety-nine dollars!! And then there's the Wilson Gold – the supposed standard by which all other CPs are judged – and it's using ABS (cheaper), a pathetic harness (since upgraded, but 15 years too late), and 1" thick homogenous sofa cushion foam (again, cheap!!!!), and Wilson is charging... $200??!?!?!? WTF???!! CPs are a demonstration of functional physics, with an infusion of chemistry and materials science... ... and a dash of (manipulative) psychology. Without going into one of my famous diatribes, any laminate foam is going to perform better than a homogenous foam. Wilson and Douglas (as the best-known examples) employ homogenous, open-cell foam (used for upholstery, AKA "sofa cushion" foam) within a 3-layer construct. I say 3-layer, because to be technical, you must count the encasing material. Wilson totally cheaps out and uses cheap, crude nylon of the same variety used in Coleman tent floors and ditty bags. What this homogenous foam is depending on is volume. This is why it is 1" thick – the impact energy assails the plate, which in turn compresses the entirety of the plate against a broad region of the pad. Drop a 10 lb bowling-ball-sized sphere upon a 1" foam pad – the pad likely bottoms out at the point of impact. However, drop that same bowling ball upon that same foam pad with a 1/4" thick piece of plywood atop it; then, the load is distributed across the breadth of the plywood, and the foam likely doesn't flatten (entirely). At this point, we have to consider the following characteristics: 1) the weight of the plywood at 1/4"; can we go thinner? 2) the height (loft, thickness, volume) of the foam; can we go thinner? 3) the trait of open-cell foam to absorb and hold moisture (water) and heat; can we find something else? Open cell foam is rather nice and cushy as a material-of-body-contact, but it is pathetic at absorbing energy unless it has significant thickness. Closed cell foam is superb at energy absorption, and at refraining or eschewing moisture (water), because the cells are not water permeable, and the foam itself can be formulated to be hydrophobic. However, closed cell foam doesn't do that well at filling space, especially the space between a plastic plate and the wearer's body. Thus, when an impact assails a plate, it propels the plate and the closed cell foam back, across that empty space until the foam contacts the body, and then begins to compress. This is the (painful) result of an improperly fitted CP ( @Tksjewelry and I have discussed this at length, since she is an advocate for female umpires and their gear and attire challenges). So, the best thing to have is a combination – or, laminate – of open-cell foam's cushy loft and closed-cell foam's energy absorption. Once you set upon this method, you can begin to substitute in different varieties of closed-cell, thermoplastic foams, and benefit from their formulaic traits and characteristics. For example, certain varieties of TPU-EVA foam (TPU: thermoplastic polyurethane; EVA: ethylene-vinyl acetate, a particular polymer that is produced as a thermoplastic) are exceptionally hydrophobic, and their "crush resilience" can be formulaically controlled. Zorbium (Team Wendy's), Phylon (Nike), Fresh Foam (New Balance), Unobtamium (Oakley)... these are all trademarked examples. Once you settle on a closed-cell foam, then you can look at how to alter the open-cell foam; instead of using upholstery foam, why not consider egg-carton foam (All-Star does this), or lattice foam (Schutt-Adams did this) instead? Then, instead of using crude nylon, why not use a technical fabric, microfiber, or mesh? The lofty price tags on the All-Star Cobalt, the Douglas PDV, and the Force3 UnEqual are... I won't say "justified" outright, but I'll say "understandable"... when you consider: All-Star Cobalt: Cutting edge, modern design, laminate foam (technical microfiber // TPU-EVA foam // egg-carton open cell foam // technical mesh; arranged in pods), HDPE plating, additional armored extension. Douglas PDV: Made in the USA. Top quality craftsmanship and product support. Force3 UnEqual: Neoprene casing, Kevlar-backed plate cells (segments); the Kevlar is there as the best strength-to-weight ratio for energy absorption. Each of these is well past $200 each. So where does that $200+ for a 25 year old, China-produced, poorly-supported, ill-fitted, bulky, cumbersome loaf of a chest protector go? What's that money _for_??!

I was trying out. The problem was that my high school assigner, who also assigned MD JUCO baseball, said that I don't have a chance working college baseball because of the amount of ex-pros. There’s another possibility here; granted it’s a bit backhanded and insidious, and I wouldn’t state that these are this man’s intentions without more evidence… but… Perhaps that HS assigner is trying to dissuade you (from college) so he doesn’t lose your availability for HS and JuCo under his purview. 🤷🏼‍♂️ Don’t know maybe so? Not everyone has your best interests in mind, or bereft of some sort of interest served to their own part.

<sarcasm> Why are you running? Don’t you know that angle trumps distance? And, why haven’t you adopted that… sentiment… wherein we BUs no longer use A, and instead just stay at B for everything? Press box? What is this press box of which you speak? I’ve called NAIA and JuCo games (get real, D3 is the same boat 🛶) where the scorekeeper is at a table behind the chain-link backstop, and it’s a crapshoot as to if the scoreboard works or not. </sarcasm>

There might be, but in fairness, the core items – the ZRO-G mask, the Cobra CP, and the shinguards, specifically – are all more-than-adequate for most amateur umpires. And the prices! Wow, what a savings! Sure, the ZRO-G mask is hollow-tube steel, and not any of the -ums, but it looks just like a Nike "Icon", without the hefty price tag. The pads are super-springy AirCell open-cell-foam pads, among the best of the "stock standard" pads on the market. Sure, the shinguards are basic, but really, do new umpires really need premium shin guards? Heck, they even use SR buckles instead of cheap steel D-rings and clips! Then, that brings us to the Cobra. I'll expound more on the details later, but the Cobra was poised to upend the protective gear market when +POS suspended operations. It was one of the first CPs to use HDPE instead of ABS, its layout was uniquely and innovatively effective, and it was employing 5-layer laminate foam... while the ol' yellow-W slug was still stuck on sofa cushion foam! ... annnnnnnddddd charging $200 for it!

These RefSmart timers, with dipswitches, are the NFHS of the timer/time-keeping world, ie. they are the lowest, crudest denominator of complexity. A party-favor digital watch I get for 50 tokens at Chuck E Cheese has more complexity... How? The party favor has a fricken' screen! (Crude that it may be). In another comparison, even a simple television remote – with no screen, per se – can be connected to a computer via USB and reprogrammed, often thru a simple web portal. Why wasn't this employed? Why use an abacus when a calculator is available?? Oo! Instead of something mounted on the hip, how about something that ... I don't know... is worn on the wrist, or the back of the hand, or nestled in the palm of the left hand? It wouldn't necessarily have to have a screen – sure, it'd be nice – but it strums / thumps / vibrates in different ways... and is easily reprogrammable... ... using something more intuitive than flipping teeny tiny switches up and down.

I’ll still be sporting my stopwatch, TYVM. S#!t, I’d be willing to forgo having a booth/stands clock operator, and run everything on the field… if that meant or brought us 3-man umpiring crews (once again)!

That’s… nice… and all, but where is the baseball, real-world application? Or implication, for that matter? So you’re dropping a steel shot (ball bearing) from a height… is that steel shot 5 oz? Is it traveling at 95 mph? That’s the only numbers guys (in our practical business) care about. You’re demonstrating “typical” foam; that’s not entirely typical. That’s not Qualux (let’s name the beast) upholstery foam, 3/4” (Douglas) to 1” (Wilson) thick. Nor is it topped by a “plastic” (ABS, HDPE, PVC, etc) plate. That plastic plate, and its absence, is one of the primary reasons why your (Force3) UnEqual CP never achieved the market-shifting potential you so wanted. If you were to show the systems, in their model entirety (technical fabric, foam layer(s), plastic plate), and then drop (or shoot) a 5 oz ball at it, then you have a more realistic comparison. Then you can exhibit that your system is thinner, lighter, but achieves the same (or better!) protection values. Otherwise, what does that slick demonstration really show us? Not much. I’m not calling my colleagues and contemporaries stupid or slow, but most will not be able to extrapolate the/any implication from a bounce test like this. The test that “moves needles” is a much more practical one, with an Umpire (uppercase) wearing one; and that shot you had, you blew it when the ball missed and the Umpire winced. White-walled labs ain’t ball fields.

Have some fun with some more of these: There’s at least two of these that I’ve been proxy to a fellow umpire calling OBS on (reported to by crewmate who is a Vulture colleague).

… and one that we professional (lowercase) and pay-per-game umpires must be very aware and careful of when referencing. Know your context. Who here would be calling R2 Out for Abandonment? Who here would be calling F6 for OBS? Who here would score R3 (if there was one), because F5 made a coy game of tagging R2 instead of touching 3B? Who here calls R2 safe at 3B, just to prove a point to F5 that shenanigans have no place in “my (the umpire’s) game, or on my field”? Who here would be extolling or chastising F5 about making “my” (this) game a mockery? Who here would get the crew together to discuss the “temperature of the game”, and the possibility of needing to issue bench warnings to suppress any further or escalating tensions?

@bluetick48, if you truly want the best of both worlds – the timeless, iconic style of the Nike “Icon” Ti and the cutting edge modernity of the All-Star FM4K Mag – well… keep your eyes peeled. @DerekGDS and Gerry Davis Sports have something special appearing on the ever-approaching horizon.

You do know that “graphic novel” is a fancy-shmancy term for a “comic book”, right?

True. We didn’t have an ejection, but the Head (and only) Coach had to tap out to respond to an urgent family emergency (elderly parent incident, if I recall?), and the AD took over. He had very little baseball knowledge, and just hovered around the dugout, while a few upperclassman “ran things”.

That is indeed a Wilson DynaLiTi. The DynAlum V1 that had rounded ear guards was never that thin… as thin as titanium affords. It’s taken a shot. By all means, use it until it gets worse, and then have MaskIt set it right. Good find!