catcher

He is always trying to save money. Who doesn't? I was serious - it looked like it wouldn't be to hard to attach it. I guess nobody has tried. Oh well.... guess it sounded better in my head.

I have an old pair of Nautilus plate shoes and a pair of Nike diamond trainers. Today I got the crazy idea of cutting off the steel part of the plate shoes and putting them on the base shoes. Anybody try this? Is it feasible? How well does it work? I think I'll either get a light, comfortable pair of plate shoes or I'll ruin two pairs of shoes that I like.

Tony just did it on mine ...I had my FM25 w/ the gray pads re-done and it DOES look really nice without the I-Bar tag You can't just say that without pictures!

Yep! there are a few guys who went away from the Nike this season .... Laz and Hallion are the two that stand out to me now. Yes, those All-Star pads have a unique color to them,... he must have liked that "luggage" look What's Hallion wearing now?

YOU WERE IN A MOVIE????

Do you find they protect as well as the LUC pads?

Why?

Interesting... I know literally nothing about metal, but I expected the bars to be silver.

@Mike Prince - mask question - do you like the LMX or LUC pads better? I have LUCs and am thinking I might shell out the $20 for the leather ones. (Sorry to hijack the thread. I don't have half of what's on the list, so I'd just embarrass myself.)

Oops. Sorry, I should have been more specific. I meant the single-bar mask that @EMump is looking for.

I didn't know Riddell used to make masks. Anyone have pics? When I search on google, all I get are football masks.

I have Smitty combos, also relatively new, that I bought last fall and have had no zipper problems (knock on wood.) If you got them from UA they'll probably replace them.

One other idea that might work: All-star makes nice leather pads. There is an old type of tan pads that Laz Diaz wears. By consensus, they're horrifyingly ugly. You can get them here. http://www.sportsdepot.com/baseball/cat/style-Catcher-Accessories/all-star-catchers-equipment-pcid-761#Tan/472 A more aesthetically pleasing option would be to talk to All-Star (you can find their account on this site.) The inside of their new leather pads is a lighter tan, more like the color of the Wilsons. Since they have that color leather, they might be able to make some lighter color pads for you. Here's a pic of Diaz. '> Here's a pic of the inside of the newer pads. '>

This might be a stretch, but I have a Japanese exchange student working in our high school association for the spring. Since there seems to be all kinds of sites in Japan, I believe, would you want me to see if he could score a couple of pair of these for you. His parents were able to get his gear here within a weeks time when he joined. This kid, by the way, is 19 and can flat out umpire. Umpstu - when you mentioned Japan, I remembered this site: http://www.go-stop-call.com/wilson_npb_mask.html $50 plus shipping. If you don't want to go that way, at least that's proof that they exist in Japan and the person that @umpstu knows might be able to get a pair or two.