WIUMP

Patrick Faerber (Umpire Classroom) has a pretty good video on this, IIRC.

Wilson has been somewhat innovative with their Evoshield catchers gear. Reimagined shin guards, Windpact mask pads, chest protectors with a brassière-like wire to provide better fitting. Not all have have survived the 2.0 version of the product but they are doing something on the catcher side. Nothing on the umpire side remotely reflects this innovation through the leap from one to the other is relatively small, especially with masks. Force 3 and All-Star have almost completely cornered the MLB catcher market on face and head protection. Yadi wore an All-Star bucket with Rawlings and then Jordan (Nike) gear. William Contreras wears a F3 mask with Jordan gear. I'm watching the Padres right now and their catcher is wearing a F3 mask with Rawlings gear. It seems that catchers are willing to take the payday from Rawlings and Nike but when it comes to protection that matters, they go with the companies who actually put some R&D behind their product.

Luggage issues or the clubbie put his pants in with the bleach load. I was watching at a bar with the sound off so I didn't hear the commentary.

In coaching runners, I don't think anything has to change. I'm definitely not using OBS as a strategy, though I've seen video of rundowns where this type of strategy is being employed. In this scenario, R1 is still keying off of the pitcher and the position of F3 doesn't matter. Get out to your lead, read the pitcher, execute what ever the next phase is; secondary lead, advancing to 2B, returning to 1B, etc.. The Naylor deke only worked because the runner was keying on F3, not F1. Also consider that I coach at the amateur level where my athletes are not full-time baseball players. I need to keep things as simple as possible and spend my practice time working on executing simple. At high-level college and professional baseball, there is a lot more time to incorporate more complexity into parts of the game that is not practical at the amateur level. The advantage here for the defense is F3 is able to be in a better position to field a batted ball compared with the traditional positioning for holding a runner. My guess is the Mariners, while using this positioning, observed that R1 could be deked by F3 and an actual play evolved from that knowledge.

I have the premium F3 harness. Using it with the skully. It grips the helmet really well. So well that sometimes is difficult to pull it on quickly. It doesn't slide nicely over the helmet as I pull it back.

Congrats on the season. IMO, this is one of the most difficult calls in crew of two. Plate is often blocked off. Plus, I think it may be physically impossible for our eyes, which capture about 7 frames per second (a standard definition camera operates at 30 FPS), to actually see this unless the stars align in our favor. U1, especially in B or C, unless the ball has some crazy spin coming off the batter, is in a tough spot too. I had a conversation with @MadMax about this scenario. I'll let him give specifics if he chooses. Since that conversation, I've been loudly and confidently killing anything that has any indicator of being a batter hit in the box by a batted ball even if I don't actually see the contact. If nothing else, talking with Max gave me license to make the call and not wait for my partner who is probably waiting for me to make the call.

Maybe he's wearing Champros. Doesn't want to lose street (diamond) cred.

I've worked about a dozen games with mine. Still getting used to it. I still get the feeling that the mask is resting on the brim rather than secured to my forehead. That may be a function of the bulky padding and weight of the F3 mask. The UE-endorsed solution is probably to buy a different $300 mask but with high school season winding down, so are the game checks. So far, no strikes from a bat. Two foul balls have bounced off my head after hitting backstop netting extending over live-ball territory.

I used these as a coach for a few years. I never had a question or complaint from umpires. We practiced using the play cards and the codes as to not disrupt the flow of the game any more than giving traditional signs would. Several coaches in my area use them at varying degrees of competence. One coach in particular will get distracted or forget about baseball for a bit and then, in panic, yell out his three-digit code after his pitcher is already set or batter has taken position in the box. Not much I can do when the pitcher steps off to check his wrist cypher. Seems not too different than a coach telling his pitcher to step off so he can relay some information. I stopped granting time to his batters in this situation, though. No opponent has picked up on the batter stepping out to check his card without being granted time. It's too bad. I've been waiting to cross the double strike off my bingo card for a while.

I can't wait to read that ejection report.

Agreed. I certainly enjoy some extra beer money. But I doubt if someone is taking the time to visit this site, learn a few things, provide their insight for others, etc, they aren't doing it just for the money. I recently worked a game with a partner who asked if I was certified for high school softball. I told him I wasn't. He told me that a particular conference in the area has a 90 minute time limit for their varsity games. Said working games "was like taking candy from a baby." That kinda rubbed me the wrong way. I'll save my other observations about this partner for my upcoming partner horror stories thread.

At the state level in Wisconsin, the rankings are seemingly meaningless. In our conference, we have seven varsity teams so we're able to look at the context a little bit more. We recently had an issue with a crew and the comment section of the evaluation was valuable in gathering statements from coaches and ensuring that accounts were corroborated by both coaches. Yes. There are still comments made about judgement calls, which are mostly ignored unless there is an obvious pattern. The Likert scale ranking criteria does not include any coach evaluation of judgement. My categories for this year are appearance, professionalism, communication, game management, rules knowledge and application, and mechanics and positioning. This system probably doesn't work in other conferences. For us, however, it has allowed us to add a layer of accountability and hopefully weed out the guys who are just doing this for the game check or the 120 minutes of power.

The bestest boy.