No-Line Glasses

[georgelog]

I recently changed to no-line bifocal eye glasses. I've noticed that unless I'm looking straight ahead, there's a noticeable amount of visual distortion. Objects that I know are straight appear curved, circles look egged shaped. I wonder how this will affect ball/stike calls.

Anybody have experience with no-line glasses???

Thanks,
George

[briancurtin]

i dont have glasses, nor do i know anything about them, but i do know that you need to see to correctly umpire a baseball game. i would try and see if you can get someone to go to a gym one day and call a few pitches and see if you can do it ast least as well as you were able to previously. see if eggs are flying at you, or circular baseballs, and ask the catcher and pitcher if your zone honestly looks good, and if you are missing, where it is occuring.

it would probably be good to do that before taking a full spring schedule in my opinion.

[JRutledge]

I do not wear glasses when I umpire. I only wear contacts. So I do not know what you are talking about. Why not wear contacts? I thought there were contacts that could help both near and far sighted people?

Peace

[briancurtin]

Originally posted by JRutledge
I thought there were contacts that could help both near and far sighted people?

nike even has (or is coming out with) contacts for baseball players that have a red tint to them so you can pick out the ball easier. a friend of mine had a sample pair and hitting in the cage he could see the ball out of the hand much quicker and it stood out to him throughout the whole flight.

i dont believe they are prescription lenses, but i thought it was a pretty cool thing and i just threw it out there.

[JRutledge]

I believe the contacts from Nike are prescription. You at the very least have a doctor fit them. Now that is what I heard in a news report about 2 months ago.

Peace

[JJ]

I wore contacts when I went to umpire school in 1985, but quickly abandon them when I got home because it's so windy around here in the Spring that I had more dust in my eyes than light coming in. I've worn glasses ever since, with no problems other than the fact that they occasionally fog up on a hot, muggy night.
I wore no-line bifocals for two seasons with no problems - I, too, had the concern of distortion, but it was no problem to see things clearly. I went back to regular vision glasses simply because they served my purpose just fine and were considerably cheaper than bifocals.
The one noticeable advantage with the no-line bifocals was I could actually read the lineup cards!

JJ

[gotblue?]

I have single vision lenses (nearsightedness) that I use for umpiring. My "no-line" bifocals do distort enough that I do not want to wear them at least behind the plate, and I am lucky so far that I don't yet need them to read a lineup card.

I have also tried soft contact lenses recently (primarily so that I could use them for umpiring), but I apparently have a bit of an astigmatism that can not be corrected fully, and my vision was only close to 20/20, and worsened in lower light (twilight or night games). Plus, my farsightedness worsened with these.

I wore hard contact lenses for a long time, but had to give those up due to increasingly worse allergies. They worked great when clean, but, as mentioned by JJ, anytime any dust or anything got in them, it was like someone was poking a needle in your eye. Made calling balls and strikes a real challenge.

Laser surgery (or whatever comes along in the next year or so) may be the next thing that I try.

[JJ]

Lasik surgery is potentially the best thing that ever happened to folks forced to wear glasses. My wife had it when it first became available (15 years ago) - when they actually used a blade to physically cut the eyeball, and has loved being glasses-free ever since. A D1 umpire I know had it done with the laser a couple of years ago and says it's a "miracle". As for me, "Cluck, cluck, cluck..."

JJ

[ASA/NYSSOBLUE]

Originally posted by georgelog
I recently changed to no-line bifocal eye glasses. I've noticed that unless I'm looking straight ahead, there's a noticeable amount of visual distortion. Objects that I know are straight appear curved, circles look egged shaped. I wonder how this will affect ball/stike calls.

Anybody have experience with no-line glasses???

Thanks,
George

George-

I got the 'no liners' myself last year..it DOES take bit of retraining to focus properly! If your association has a clinic for new officials, I would highly recommend you asking if you can 'sit in' on some of the plate traaining...plus work all the scrimmages you can find too! You might find for the plate that the focus area for 'near' is a bit too small...did you get sunglasses with the high index too? If not, I would also recommend that you get THOSE with a slightly larger 'far' area to wear on the bases,and for driving. If you have any questions, dont hesitate to ask with a PM!

Lou the softball ump who was passing thru

[ChapJim]

George,

That's the way no-lines are made -- the prescription portion of the lens is shaped like an hourglass, distance at the top, near at the bottom. The result is that you have a wedge at each side with no prescription. Some people never get used to the waviness at the side. Some even get seasick!

My optometrist is a baseball person. He says that nothing an umpire does requires near vision. He's wrong but only because of lineup cards. I use distance vision only clear glasses for the plate and night games and DVO sunglasses for the field, when needed. The clear glasses are a lot smaller than the sunglasses to make it easier to get a mask off.

My prescription corrects to 20/15 which works fine but that makes it even harder to read lineup cards. I just look over the top of my glasses or take them off.