Armored Undies

[BalkHawk]

     Umpires know that a foul ball on the inner thigh is sure to leave a huge bruise that changes color and moves around before finally going away. The first one is bad enough but now you have to worry about wearing one on the same spot. It's the one area that isn't protected (along with the gut and arms where it doesn't hurt). You can purchase sliding shorts with some padding that is in the wrong areas for umpires. The most expensive brands like Nike, EvoShield, and Shock Doctor have price tags right around $50. 

 

     I e-mailed Jason at JEUA not too long ago, asking if Unequal would consider making me some kevlar protection for my thighs. I wondered how they could get it to breath, how it would be washable, and if they could go ahead and protect the boys while they're at it. I didn't ask about any prices, but figuring that the Unequal CP is advertised just under 200% of the price for a Platinum on Joe's site, I would assume that I could expect the same premium for a totally new, for-umpires-only, piece of armor. Jason responded the same day and assured me that the product of which I wrote was already in the works for the last year. Apparently, it will be released this year, and it will have pockets so you can remove the armor for the wash. No further info was given.

 

     What do y'all think? Does anybody have any bespoke umpire thigh protection they have invented? Is this something you might buy?

[UmpJM]

motoUMP,

You might want to check out hexpad tights.

JM

[Jocko]

Probably not.

[slo8140]

The baseball umpire hex pad tights are no longer made. You will notice that most of the suppliers are out. Some guys wear the mcdavids designed for football, but the pads are all not where we need them to be. I would be curious to see what unequal comes up with.

[JaxRolo]

Interesting.

Some of my biggest bruises have been to inner thigh.

[scrounge]

Actually, they're still available on Amazon, specially designed for umpires. Not the cheapest by any means but certainly not the most expensive item in the gear bag. I didn't think I needed them....till I took a nasty shot last year that lingered for weeks. No exaggeration.

 

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003N7N55Y/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B003N7N55Y&linkCode=as2&tag=hubpages05ec-20

[LMSANS]

Interesting.

Some of my biggest bruises have been to inner thigh.

That's what she said...

[ScubaUmp]

Mcdavid 7450 hexpad every dish I do. Bought them after an inner thigh that lasted several weeks. The color show was trippy.

[UMP45]

If all else fails just get some old style Kotex! If you're gonna gonna be a wuss may as well complete the outfit!

[Jocko]

Actually, they're still available on Amazon, specially designed for umpires. Not the cheapest by any means but certainly not the most expensive item in the gear bag. I didn't think I needed them....till I took a nasty shot last year that lingered for weeks. No exaggeration. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003N7N55Y/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B003N7N55Y&linkCode=as2&tag=hubpages05ec-20

I'd prefer these. http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B007P5PN7I/ref=mw_dp_sim_ss6?pi=SL500_SY125 They're cheaper and kill 3 birds with 1 stone (leggings, cup pocket, and thigh pads).

[BalkHawk]

Actually, they're still available on Amazon, specially designed for umpires. Not the cheapest by any means but certainly not the most expensive item in the gear bag. I didn't think I needed them....till I took a nasty shot last year that lingered for weeks. No exaggeration.

 

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003N7N55Y/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B003N7N55Y&linkCode=as2&tag=hubpages05ec-20

 

I didnt know McDavid had an umpire-specific model. These look like they could work.

[Pete Peterson Sr]

If all else fails just get some old style Kotex! If you're gonna gonna be a wuss may as well complete the outfit!

 

 The same thing was said of catchers when protective gear was first introduced to baseball. If you don't want to wear it,fine, but why belittle someone who does ? It's not like he's showing up in a suit of armor.....

[Jocko]

Agreed, Pete. We spend bookoo denero on masks, cps, TW retro cps, shins, shoes, etc. And we ALL have it. Why is it different for hexpads? I personally don't wear them. But I might order a pair of the pants.

[scrounge]

Alright, who wants to get SUPER DUPER FREAKY DEAKY F$#%%#% PARANOID?!?!?  Real story from north of the border:

 

Ottawa umpire dies of flesh-eating disease after being struck by foul ball

                            

                        
                

                    Bob Brousseau was hit in
the thigh by a foul ball during a game he was umpiring on July 6. Less
than three weeks later, on July 26, he died from necrotizing fasciitis,
better known as flesh-eating disease. He was 60.
                                    

            

          

By Zev Singer

Ottawa Citizen

OTTAWA — Umpire Bob Brousseau was standing behind the catcher, as
he’d done in thousands of at-bats before this one, when he was hit by a
foul ball. It got him square and hard, but only at a spot not vulnerable
enough to be buried beneath his protective gear: The innocuous seeming
baseball struck his thigh.

Brousseau, six-foot-four and still in good shape at 60, shook it off.
This wasn’t the first time a foul ball had clipped him; his collection
of umpiring bruises over the years in the men’s recreation league had
claimed space on his hip, his sternum, even the side of his head.

He umpired the rest of the game, on July 6, and didn’t think much more about it.

It was a bad bruise, though, and over the next few days Pat Longmore,
his common law wife of 20 years, noticed it was getting worse.

“It just started getting bigger and darker,†said Longmore. “And I
said, ‘You know, you should go and see about it.’ And he said, ‘No, it’s
just a bruise. It will go away.’â€

It was Monday, July 9, that he went to the Emergency Room at the
Brockville General Hospital, where the couple recently moved from
Ottawa.

The staff there suspected it was a type of hernia and sent him home. Two days later, Brousseau fell out of bed.

“I called the ambulance. They came and got him,†Longmore said.

At first, the paramedics though he might have had a stroke.

The diagnosis, when it came later, was much more shocking.

At the site of the bruise, Brousseau had necrotizing fasciitis,
commonly known as flesh-eating disease. The fast-spreading infection is
known to start at the site of a trauma, often a cut or a scrape. But
most of the time the disease takes hold in people who are
immunosuppressed in some way. And Brousseau, as far as he knew, was
healthy. After driving to Ottawa each morning from Brockville, the
retired military man, though a grandfather of six, would park at
Fallowfield and ride his bike downtown to National Defence headquarters
to his job as a commissionaire.

From the Brockville hospital, Brousseau was sent to Kingston, where
they discovered that he also had acute leukemia. Because of that, his
immune system had been unable to fight the bacterial infection and it
was spreading quickly.

They operated, twice, to try to remove the diseased tissue. Then they
went back and took his whole right leg. With all the treatment, his
extremities were not getting sufficient blood flow and began to turn
black. They had to take his left foot, two fingers on one hand and one
on the other.

At that point, a week after he’d fallen out of bed, the doctors said there was some hope.

It didn’t last long. After one more week, they were told to have
their family meeting; the disease had spread to his pelvis and there was
nothing to be done.

“He was gone less than 12 hours later,†said Longmore, still baffled
by the awful and strange sickness. “The doctors say they don’t know what
causes it, why some people and why at this time, when he’s had bruises
all over the place before.â€

She said she hopes doctors will work hard to inform themselves about the disease and keep a lookout for it.

 

Hundreds of friends turned out at a wake for him Monday night in Barrhaven, all shocked at the sudden illness and death.

The majority knew him from his extensive involvement with
Toastmasters clubs, where members gather to improve their speaking and
leadership skills.

Brousseau would tell people about the way Toastmasters had helped him
overcome the fear of speaking he had developed because of a stutter.
But through his encouragement of others, and the frequent practical help
he supplied, he gave back much more than he got, friends said.

“He thought we were teaching him,†said friend Judith Waddell. “But he was teaching us.â€

The last speaking Bob Brousseau did was the sentence he managed to
utter when some tubes were removed in the hours before his death.

“He could barely get it out,†Longmore said. “But he said ‘I love you’.â€

A military funeral will be held at Beechwood Cemetery on Friday at 12:15 p.m.

[BalkHawk]

I understand these things can cause blood clots too. With the major artery in the vicinity, I don't care to continue to subject myself to the gnarly thigh bruise. I have been without the use of a leg for a long recovery from a car accident and it is NO FUN. 

[Dannytheman]

If I where to go back up to High School and college ball, I would spend the money. But in Little League it don't hurt that bad.

[th3]

my worst bruise ever was a foul ball that caught the very bottom of my CP and deflected down to my inner thigh - on a cold april day...purple then yellow lasted a couple of weeks..

[slo8140]

Today took several shots in a travel ball scrimmage....one to the hand, one to the thigh...one to the stomach. Every where I don't have protection. It was the Unequal CP using its forcefield powers.

[BalkHawk]

should'a giged 'em

   'cept other side up

[amarillo]

Checked swing foul ball caught my inner thigh I bruised from knee to nuts. Promptly went looking for something that would protect this area for the rest of the season. I found these from shock doctor they are actually MMA shorts but they work. They even have a cup pocket.

https://www.shockdoctor.com/ultra-martials-arts-padded-impact-short

[Jocko]

Wow. There are alot of products along these lines already. The UnEqual boys aren't breaking new ground.

https://www.shockdoctor.com/velocity-shockskin-mma-6-pad-impact-short-with-ultra-carbon-flex

[BalkHawk]

when i'm mixed-martial-artsing, i do not require any pads 

[BalkHawk]

Wow. There are alot of products along these lines already. The UnEqual boys aren't breaking new ground.

https://www.shockdoctor.com/velocity-shockskin-mma-6-pad-impact-short-with-ultra-carbon-flex

disagree. these shorts almost do what i want them to, and also have a bunch of pads i don't need. if there were long pants, with strips of kevlar that cover all of the vulnerable flesh and somehow breathed enough, and didn;t have any unnecessary protection, they would stand alone. in the link you put, the shorts that come up would not protect you from a baseball just far enough down the thigh to miss the cup but not low enough to hit the pad. the ole' wv gapshot

[Jocko]

when i'm mixed-martial-artsing, i do not require any pads 

when I'm umpiring, I don't need nunchuks. :home:

[umpstu]

     Umpires know that a foul ball on the inner thigh is sure to leave a huge bruise that changes color and moves around before finally going away. The first one is bad enough but now you have to worry about wearing one on the same spot. It's the one area that isn't protected (along with the gut and arms where it doesn't hurt). You can purchase sliding shorts with some padding that is in the wrong areas for umpires. The most expensive brands like Nike, EvoShield, and Shock Doctor have price tags right around $50. 

 

     I e-mailed Jason at JEUA not too long ago, asking if Unequal would consider making me some kevlar protection for my thighs. I wondered how they could get it to breath, how it would be washable, and if they could go ahead and protect the boys while they're at it. I didn't ask about any prices, but figuring that the Unequal CP is advertised just under 200% of the price for a Platinum on Joe's site, I would assume that I could expect the same premium for a totally new, for-umpires-only, piece of armor. Jason responded the same day and assured me that the product of which I wrote was already in the works for the last year. Apparently, it will be released this year, and it will have pockets so you can remove the armor for the wash. No further info was given.

 

     What do y'all think? Does anybody have any bespoke umpire thigh protection they have invented? Is this something you might buy?

I would absolutely consider wearing them and spending the bucks if they're done right. I love my Unequal chest protector