carlucci gear

[D62 blue]

WOW Marc ........just wow!!!

thanks it is pretty cool to get a hold of such a find . i spent months corresponding with this man , wasnt sure it would happen , and didnt know what i had till we met .

marc

[grayhawk]

Cool gear, especially the Crocs plate shoes. Gotta get me some of those! :)

[D62 blue]

Cool gear, especially the Crocs plate shoes. Gotta get me some of those!

funny guy , the crocs are for when i work beach b ball gms

marc

[D62 blue]

WOW Marc ........just wow!!!

thanks it is pretty cool to get a hold of such a find . i spent months corresponding with this man , wasnt sure it would happen , and didnt know what i had till we met .

marc

http://amateurumpire.com/amateurumpire/reviews/mr_ump1.htm for anyone interested , here is a link to an article from 1998 about mr carlucci , and his gear . there is also a review (link) from some one who bought the CP . you will notice in the photo , the CP has an added plastic plate (optional) when ordering . other than that and black color , it is the same CP .

marc

[jkumpire]

This will be a rather long post, so please bear with me.

After some gentle discussions I purchased the Carlucci gear from D62, and I have used the gear at least 6 times in everything from D1 wood bat leagues to 13 yr old kids. Here is my evaluation of the equipment.

1. My guess is that this is equipment Cece made in the 1980's. My CP from the early 2000's has some differences that I can talk about if you are interested. I have yet to take a hard shot on the CP, I did take 2 balls off the shoulder and upper arm pads with no problems. The Cp fits me very well, though the throat pad needed some getting used to, at times it would almost choke me until I adjusted it. My guess is from wearing it is that i can take a hard shot in it well, but it would not protect as well as my other Carlucci or most modern hardshells. But in comparison to stuff of its era, like the SOS models, +POS, and some many other old and retired CP's, there is no comparison. This CP would work well.

I also found this CP to be much, much cooler than my other Carlucci. It is light, and not quite as long as my newer Carlucct. Sadly it is all vinyl, as the shin guards are, but it wipes off easily, and did I say it's cooler than my black one! It also looks pretty good under college powder blue in my opinion, thought I would not wear it with black.

I am considering doing some modifications to it in the off season, namely adding a leather piece under the CP, and a plastic shell over the upper part of it for more protection. But it is a splendid protector.

2. As D62 Blue said, the shins are 17" or so, and I usually wear 18" guards so they work out well. These are older guards, I really think they expose something flawed in modern shin guard design. they do not wrap totally around the leg, only have three attachment points, and have limited ankle area coverage. But, they are lighter than the Honigs K20's (I think) I purchased and used in 2010 and 2011, with the large foam wraps around the large and ankle area. Most modern shins have max protect designs to work over and on top of the plate shoes. These do not, they fit great using NB 450's or Reeboks. The protection goes right to the top of the low cut shoe, and just over the top of the 450's. Unless your mechanics/stance is bad, these shins cover everything you need covered, and they give you a lot of freedom to run in!

As to protection, I took two ball right off the top of the kneecaps recently, an didn't feel a thing. Cece knew how to make his equipment work well. The shin guards are the best part of the package, and I wish some other manufactures would follow his lead, instead of the more modern "armor everywhere" guards. Light, comfortable, great protection, cool, can;t beat them!

3. The mask that comes from this set is I believe an old Honigs Royal Blue single bar mask, circa 2003 or 2004. It is heavy, though the black molded pads are in good shape. It will end up on ebay in the near future. What is interesting about the mask is that there is an alternate set of vinyl mask pads that Cece made to match the mask. Nobody would use them today, but those of us who are old enough to remember when almost everyone used vinyl pads unless you could afford doeskin (which was rare at the time) these pads would be very, very comfortable to use. They would not work in a modern mask made today.

4. The last items in the pictures are marvelous, and really speak about how Cece made his equipment and cared about his customers. There are two shoe bags, and one carry bag that Cece made himself. the bag can carry the CP, shins, and shoes, and a few other items, since the CP does fold up. The shoe bags are made the same way with some kind of thick polyester fabric, in a way like a rug, The inside of the bags have a very fine polyester mesh in them, I assume to keep wet or dirty gear from getting to the inside of the outside of the bag (if you know what I mean). The mesh is think enough to keep the stuff inside the bags from rubbing up against the outer bag material. It's not made like any bag I've ever seen, and it looks like he made the bags by hand. They will last for years. I can put my size 15 base shoes in one bag, my plate shoes don't fit. But no matter, once they cleaned up (there was a ton of some kind of black gritty substance all over the bags which took some work to clean out) these bags will serve me well for many years,and the next person who will use the gear after I sell it.

In conclusion, I probably overpaid for the gear, but it was worth it. Cece Carlucci was "The Umpire's Umpire", and his care an craftsmanship shows through in all his gear he made. He made a lot of things for umpires, and the only item that might not be at the absolute top of the quality scale were his ball bags, but only because he did not have access to the materials most modern bags are made with. I will wear these with pride for a long time to come, and I hope I can do as good a job umpiring in them as he did in making them.

Let me know if you have comments or questions!

[jkumpire]

WOW Marc ........just wow!!!

thanks it is pretty cool to get a hold of such a find . i spent months corresponding with this man , wasnt sure it would happen , and didnt know what i had till we met .

marc

http://amateurumpire...ews/mr_ump1.htm for anyone interested , here is a link to an article from 1998 about mr carlucci , and his gear . there is also a review (link) from some one who bought the CP . you will notice in the photo , the CP has an added plastic plate (optional) when ordering . other than that and black color , it is the same CP .

marc

D62, link is bad, can you find it again?

[D62 blue]

WOW Marc ........just wow!!!

thanks it is pretty cool to get a hold of such a find . i spent months corresponding with this man , wasnt sure it would happen , and didnt know what i had till we met .

marc

http://amateurumpire...ews/mr_ump1.htm for anyone interested , here is a link to an article from 1998 about mr carlucci , and his gear . there is also a review (link) from some one who bought the CP . you will notice in the photo , the CP has an added plastic plate (optional) when ordering . other than that and black color , it is the same CP .

marc

D62, link is bad, can you find it again?

i believe that the site has been "parked" , for lack of a better term . my guess is that no one is paying for the hosting of the site anymore , so the site is in limbo . nothing we can do . whoever owns/ran the site , doesnt want to renew the hosting fee? its too bad , this site had some great umpire info and article's . i tried doing a search and the site just doesnt show up any more .

marc

[sdix00]

Well this is a real shame. I have linked to this site on several occasions. Most recently on 7/1/11 so this site went offline very recently. This was a really great site. If it comes back up, I might just copy it all to a forum thread in the interest of preserving the valuable content.

[yawetag]

Well this is a real shame. I have linked to this site on several occasions. Most recently on 7/1/11 so this site went offline very recently. This was a really great site. If it comes back up, I might just copy it all to a forum thread in the interest of preserving the valuable content.

Guess what I have? :beerbang

[D62 blue]

Well this is a real shame. I have linked to this site on several occasions. Most recently on 7/1/11 so this site went offline very recently. This was a really great site. If it comes back up, I might just copy it all to a forum thread in the interest of preserving the valuable content.

Guess what I have?

ok i give up , what ?

[yawetag]

ok i give up , what ?

sdix said, "If it comes back up, I might just copy it all..."

[jkumpire]

Yawtag,

Can you at least post the information about this equipment here?

[D62 blue]

Yawtag,

Can you at least post the information about this equipment here?

+1 to that

marc

[yawetag]

Yawtag,

Can you at least post the information about this equipment here?

I apologize for the confusion. I was mentioning that I had copied all of the pages from the AmateurUmpire.com website. Stephen stated he wished he had, I stated I did.