So you are saying that NO MLB umpires use an indicator? I find that almost impossible to believe.

I have never seen/heard anything from experienced umpires, or at camps, or whatever, that losing the indicator was/is expected by a certain level....only that what's important is not to get 'lost' in it and lose focus on the game.

If one aspires to work without one, that's great...I can see how it might more finely-tune your focus and of course be one fewer item to break/lose/etc. But that fact alone doesn't make one a better or worse PU.

.... he says, in a post that is not about the topic at hand.

Look - there are 3 or 4 guys on here that HAVE to make EVERY post an attack on the person making the post. To those, I say, STFU. You bore us.

In fact, I have been told exactly that by a Texas League umpire (who, by the way, said that he did not know of any of his brethren that used one either.)

I'm not saying this to imply one is better than the other or that you can't advance if you need the indicapacifier. But I do maintain that most of you that THINK you need one, probably don't. And I do maintain that I have become more focused since dropping the use of one except when required (and I find that when I AM required, it is a distraction, not an aid.) But ... to each their own. The only thing that bugs me is when someone insists that you need this tool because it's a tool... yet have never REALLY tried it the other way, and thus do not know from whence they speak.