face mask
 

all my equipment got stolen...so i go to buy a new face mask...i bought a diamond lightweight...my problem is no matter how i try..even slowly and with 2 hands....my hat comes off every time i take it off...is it the harness...anyone have this problem or know how to resolve it....

hmm. now how does your equipment get stolen?

Happened to me in the minors. Overnight in the hotel parking lot...someone knocked out the windows to the car...bye-bye everything. At least it wasn't my car (and CD player).

Dude, equipment gets stolen all the time. I have had partners that have had their vehicles broken into, and all of their gear stolen. I had my gear in a reputable (supposedly) storage facility, complete with sturdy padlock and 24 hour video surveillance. I arrived one day to find a different padlock on the door, and most of my valuables stolen, including all of my umpire gear.

To answer the question, clips2, loosen your harness until the mask just hangs on the bill of your hat. It should be really loose, not tight like a catcher wears it.

Also, if the harness has a "Y" in it, cut out those two "Y" sections, leaving just the center strap and the band going around. More like a "T". This will eliminate the tendency of the strap to grab your hat.

The strap is just there to keep your mask from falling completely off, not to fit snugly on your head.

stolen
 

how else does something get stolen dumb ***...someone comes into your garage and takes tools and a bag with my equipment in it...

anyways
 

since one guy has never had anything stolen in his life...must live in the weeds...back to my question,,,it seams like the harness on the diamond pro is really kind of lousy...any suggestions...it really does not even fit correctly on the hat..the 2 side straps sit up high

In April 1968, all our team's equipment—bats, balls, catcher's equipment, helmets, etc.—was stolen during the night from our cars, which were broken into right outside our sleeping quarters at Duke University. We finished the trip with equipment borrowed from the Duke athletic department.

The case remained unsolved for almost 40 years, but now I hear that the Durham District Attorney plans to charge three hooligans named Seligmann, Finnerty, and Evans with the crime. These guys' high-priced lawyers have come up with a cock and bull story that the three hadn't yet been born at the time of the theft, but the D.A. says he has a witness and promises justice.

Have you tried using a different harness? I know that when I got the AUL300 from +POS it came with a terribly cheap harness that had little adjustment to it. I ordered a larger replacement harness and it worked just fine.


Tim.

Hmm, i dont know about you, but i keep my equipment in the trunk. :rolleyes:

That's funny for anyone following the Duke lacrosse case. And the DA actually got re-elected in the fall. Gotta love those voters...

Your theft case will likely drag on for a number of years until the next election and after he is re-elected again the case will be dropped. Of course that assumes he is not dis-barred for his work on this case.

Even in the middle of winter? :rolleyes:

Only for baseball season. otherwise it gets inside

LOL! On this one we're on the same page. :)

Again, a pro school umpire had me cut the two ridiculous, unnecessary straps on my mask harness, which made the harness so much better.

The 2 side straps sit up high because they are unnecessary, as I have pointed out.

Which is exactly where clips2's equiptment was. :rolleyes:

That's why you're "LL...Dan" and not "MiLB Dan".

See, in the minors two men (or the occasional woman) share one vehicle for an entire season (April-September). Since they don't get home during the season, they pack 5 1/2 months worth of crap into one car.

2 men + 5 1/2 months + 1 vehicle = a trunk and backseat full of stuff.

But thanks for the useful tip on using the trunk. I'll keep that in mind in the future.

To steal a line from Tee...your post ties for the dumbest post ever on the internet.

And this post is one of my all-time favorites! Well done!

Yet again, the troll chums the waters and the fish take the bait.....

You know...I lived in Durham at that time. Just off of the Duke campus on Trinity Avenue. However, I swear that I was nowhere near those parked cars. :rolleyes:

I find that it works out well the way I've always done it.

Every time I get a new mask, I cut the 3-point harness straps off. Just because the manufacturers design them this way doesn't make it right either. I have no problems whatsoever in pulling my mask off while wearing a six-stitch base hat. If you wear your mask tight on your little beanie, more power to ya. Plus, I will bet you that I am not the only one on this forum that has done this to his harness.

And the guy who told me to get rid of the useless webbing on the harness has more experience than the two of us put together, so I will go with his recommendation, not yours.

Why Can't We All Just Get Along?
 

I think we all, or at least most of us, are bored and itchy. No baseball to discuss so we bicker a little more than usual. I know I am wishing the season would hurry up and get here. Most of my 2007 equipment purchases have arrived and I have been reading my rule books and the forums. But, please guys, try to be more civil to each other. You never know who is reading and we sometimes sound like little children with all the bickering and name calling. Please, please, please, try to respect others' opinions and stop cutting on each other. I know I am guilty of some of the bickering and it is pointless. It doesn't even make for very good reading.

Getting along...
 

Gents,

I have spent the last couple of weeks reading some of the posts out here. Often times there is some good info. Other times you wonder what in the hell people are thinking...My point is this. We are all in the same profession here. I don't understand why some of us choose to be so rude to fellow umpires. We all do things a little differently than the next guy. If you don't agree with it, there is no reason to rip him. Makes me wonder...for those of you that rip people here - are you the guys that rip you partner on the diamond to coaches, fans, etc??

Steve --

Just my opinion, but I didn't see anything rude in most of PWL's responses in this thread, and certainly not in the first reply that you objected to. He merely has a different opinion of whether to cut off part of the harness than you do.

You can continue to cut the harness; PWL can continue to not cut the harness, and the OP can decide whether to try it (if the harness is useless anyway, s/he may want to do it).

That is asking for trouble. Your mask should fit snugly and should not rely on your hat to hold it up. Take one good foul ball with a mask loose and you will be sorry. Best way to get mask off and hat stay is practice.

A mask that is loose like this will spin off, where if it is very tight much of that impact will be absorbed into your face. Im sure somebody out there has the correct terminology and theory behind it, but tight as possible and "snug" are not accurate.

BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZT!

Thanks for playing.

Johnny, tell him what his consolation prize is.

"Well folks, Umpbrian will soon be the proud recipient of a concussion!"

No, umpbrianc, what you are saying is asking for trouble. I concur with Garth in that if the mask is too tight, your face will be the shock absorber, not the pads! This is very bad advice!

Your mask is your first and only line of defense! If the mask needs to move to absorb the impact, you must let it or you will be very sorry. Your face cannot absorb that kind of impact without something going terribly wrong. Think of it as the way engineers design an automobile to crumple around and away from the passenger area. It is better to let the force go away from you rather than let it all come to you.

As others have noted, your advice is 100% wrong. Teaching to wear a mask loosely (and the physics behind that advice) is umpiring 101, common knowledge among veteran umpires and standard instruction in every clinic from Little League to the pro schools.

What umpire training have you had?

Cripes,
 

Umpbrainc incorrectly intoned:

"Your mask should fit snugly and should not rely on your hat to hold it up. Take one good foul ball with a mask loose and you will be sorry. Best way to get mask off and hat stay is practice."

I can put up with dumb posts . . . I can't put up with DANGEROUS posts.

Please ignore brian's advice. Masks should be worn so they lightly rest on your face. If struck by a foul ball or pitch the mask SHOULD spin or fly off your head. That is the correct way to wear a mask.

One Rule ~ One Interpretation ~ One Mechanic

The rule of thumb is when you bend forward and look down, the chin pad should be off your chin by 3-4 inches. You don't want it cinched up tight. It's tangling from your hat, if worn properly.

With all due respect I am curious:

1. Where do you get this information from?
2. Where do you get off passing off this bogus information?

Hmmm... this is not bogus information I am passing along. It is directly from a MLB umpire. when I told him about your "hat holding the mask up" and 3-4 inches from the chin when you lean over... he just laughed. That is not proper for your mask.
So everyone can take whatever advise you would like... for me I'll go with the guy doing MLB.

Really? I just talked to Bill Klem and Jocko Conlan, and they both told me you were full of sh......aving cream!

did you tell him your bogus theory because if ou did i think you would get the same reaction?

to reiterate what others have repeatedly said, your mask should fit very loosely so that if you get hit the mask will spin off and keep the force of the impact away from your face

"Hmmm... this is not bogus information I am passing along. It is directly from a MLB umpire. when I told him about your "hat holding the mask up" and 3-4 inches from the chin when you lean over... he just laughed. That is not proper for your mask.
So everyone can take whatever advise you would like... for me I'll go with the guy doing MLB."

Sniff, sniff . . . if it smells like a lie,

Lap, lap . . . if it tastes like a lie,

Read, read . . . if it reads like a lie,

Most likely it is.

One Rule ~ One Interpretation ~ One Mechanic

Okay, my information has been repeated by Jim Evans and the instructors his proschool, Hunter Wendlestedt and the instructors at his pro school, Doug Harvey, Mike Winters, Joe West and many other MLB umpires I have met or have heard personally.

Name your source.

Garth named his sources, all of whom are "experts". Why don't you let us know who your source is ?

or...
 

Just get an HSM, and you wont have to worry about a harness and how tight against your face it is. :D

Dollars to donuts it's Angel Hernandez, who has carried more baseball rule myths into the majors than all the other MLB umpires combined.

The last time I took a direct shot to the mask was last spring in a varsity HS game. I was in the GD and tracked that pitch direct to my mask. Catcher obviously expecting something else because he never got a glove on it. The mask bounced off my face and landed at my feet in front of me, after which I asked the catcher if that was the best he could do.

I was expecting Davidson, the newest member of the MLB staff. Its really a toss up between Bob and Angel though.

I will contact any umpire he names and ask a straight forward question: Do you recommend that an umpire's face mask fit snugly or loosely?

Although your post has given him an "out", I will follow up on it never-the-less.

I do not frequently refer to individual as liars. In my world, that is an extreme condemnation not to be used lightly. I believe I have referred to three people as liars in the last ten years. Coincidentally, two of the three were posters on umpire boards, one of whom has, fittingly, disappeared.

I believe umpbrian to be a liar.

I'm not sure I agree with the 3-4 inches separation between your chin and the chin pad while you are in your stance. That seems a bit too loose for me. I do not wear my mask tight but I want it tight enough not to move around while I am going in and out of my stance. And yes, I've had a few good shots that have spun the mask over the years.

Lawrence

Read the post again. The 3 -4 inches was not while in a stance. It was when bending over, head down. I would agree that it is an estimation. Yours might hang less. :D

The angle of the dangle is proportional to the .......


...or something like that.

Correct
 

Probably the best advice on this thread. May I add, it doesn't hurt to wear it loose. The idea is not to wear it so tight or so snug that the harness doesn't properly work. If you can take the mask off easily and keep your hat on, the mask is probably on as lossely as needed. The harness mask combo must work correctly to protect your face.

NO Thumb or Thumbs Down
 

Ties for the most ridiculous rule in this thread. Having the mask dangle off the bill of your cap is as ridiculous as allowing the chin pad to dangle 3-4 inches away from your jawbone.

Also, the most illogical advice I have ever read on this website. That's why the damn pads are there. Wear the thing the same way every catcher and umpire in baseball wears their mask, resting against their forehead and chin. If you're too scared and follow this advice, i.e. dangling mask from bill of hat or 3-4 inch jaw clearance, then don't get behind the plate.

And you just now decided to weigh in on this, out of the blue?

I think "most dangerous advice" is a bit over-the-top, don't you? Being a little over-dramatic, I would venture. I'm sure I could find several pieces of advice which would trump this one for most dangerous.

I just tried the advice on my own mask just for kicks. My mask has about a 3 inch gap from my chin when I look down. That seems about right to me.

Wearing the mask like a catcher would be highly illogical, since catchers wear them to fit snugly around a skull cap or batting helmet. Even catchers who just wear a hat backward, wear the mask tight so it doesn't fall off. That is the main reason, besides aesthetics, that umpires differ in the way they wear their hats with the bill forward...to hold up the mask, which is to be worn loosely. There is a natural gap when looking down at the ground. If you can look straight down, and your mask is still tight against your chin, you're wearing it way too tight.

Please
 

Everyone:

Whenever SAump or PWL post ANYTHING . . . please consider the source.

Cripes,

1) well, it may be out of the blue.

2) well, it may be over-dramatic and not exactly lie in the 10-ten of the most dangerous advice given.

3) well, I can't get that kind of clearance looking down with my mask on because of the extended throat guard. Why would I care how the mask fits when I look down?

I can pull the mask away from my face and up over my head with one hand and without pulling my cap off. I think that is loose enough. My mask rest firmly right up against my face. My harness isn't too tight either. My HARNESS is in good shape and has plenty of spring left. I trust my mask/harness combo will protect me.

I think your missing the POINT. Dangling mask off bill of cap is bad advice. Not resting the chin pad against the chin is probably bad advice too. Please allow the harness to DO what it was designed to DO.

Easy there. I think you're missing a key point. If you're in normal umpire stance, with your head upright, your mask pads are resting firmly against your face. I hope your aren't envisioning the mask dangling in front of the face during play. Yikes no!

For a properly adjusted mask, I'm asking you to bend forward at the waist, 30 degrees or so. It's then that the chin pad should fall away from the chin by pivoting from point where the bill of the cap meets the head.

I can accept that
 

Well, thank you for explaining it to me in a gentlemanly manner. Actually, I never knew any rule of thumb like that ever existed among the umpiring community. It certainly is the first time I had ever read the advice.

I thought it was common knowledge. I was taught this long ago, and have heard it repeated many times, but perhaps only in person and not online anywhere. Anyways, it's served me quite will over the years. Except for a stint with the old +POS SUL, I've had good luck with getting blasted in the grill.:D

When did catchers start wearing batting helmets?

+pos Sul
 

Was that the plastic model that "deteriorated" in the heat while sitting in the trunk of the car? Met a guy today who suffered from a bloody nose taking a 90+ foul tip. Asked how the mask looked afterward, he commented on how it rebounded back into it's perfectly new form.

Did the catcher's glove hit him too? I woulda thought that the glove would have softened the blow some.

Did I say tip? Got me. I assume entire responsibility for this slip. Please don't conclude that the person who made such comments as I made about them above used the improper term of foul tip. Thank you.

I'm talking about the ear flap-less batting helmets that catcher's use, you know, like batting helmets used to be before the ear flaps. All catchers that use conventional masks use them in most leagues I've worked. Sometimes though, the catchers just turn their caps around.

Here is a picture of Johnny Bench wearing a batting helmet, just for example:

http://123pichosting.com/images/4199...ench-large.jpg

aka "skull cap."

Ah, skull cap. No longer permitted in high school ball.

Skull caps are those half-helmet affairs which do not feature a bill. What Bench is wearing in this picture is his batting helmet. Plus, not all baseball is high school ball.

Those helmets have not been permitted for any players entering the major league since 1983, while batting. So while this may be Bench's batting helmet it is not permitted as a batting helmet today, and not allowed for catchers in HS.

ABC Fielder's Helmet
 

I would say that is an ABC Fielder's helmet which was the original batting helmet being used in the late 1950's and early 60's. The batting helmet with one ear flap began to appear during the mid-60's and was made mandatory in the early 1970's. I wore a batting helmet with two ear flaps back then in HS . One-ear and two-ear flap helmets are batting helmets. That fielder's helmet remained popular among catchers and older first basemen, i.e. Boog Powell. John Olerud is one recent first baseman I can remember wearing it on the field. In HS, I have seen players on defense with previous head tramal wear the fielder's helmet.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...601343_pf.html
or
http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?...=.jsp&c_id=mlb

Baseball Express calls this a skull cap.

This is what Rawlings actually calls a skull cap, which is what I have always referred to as a skull cap. What John Olerud wore at first base is a pre-flap batting helmet. And what John Bench is wearing is also a batting helmet.

http://123pichosting.com/images/6787...resized200.jpg

And no, PWL, Johnny never wore his catcher's gear while batting. Except for that batting helmet he wore while catching.:rolleyes:

And Garry Templeton was the last player I saw using the no-flap batting helmet, as he was grandfathered too. He also used it in the adult league he played in here.

Hey all,

Aug, I believe that Ozzie Smith used that type of batting helmet more recently than Garry Templeton did. Others to use that towards the end of it's life span were Gary Carter, Mookie Wilson, Keith Hernandez, as well as the previously mentioned John Olerud.

LomUmp:cool:

And,
 

Gary Gaetti was the last MLB player allowed to wear a batting helmet with no flaps at all.

Source ESPN Column "Uni Watch".

Regards,

I wasn't inferring that Garry Templeton was the last to use the helmet, just that he was the last one that I saw wearing the helmet, as I saw him wear it on a daily basis here with the Padres. I didn't get to see Ozzie as much after Tempy flipped the bird to the fine folks in St. Louis.:(

I told you once, I'll only tell you once more
 

It is NOT a batting helmet anymore. Yes, it use to be a batting helmet 30 years ago. The cheaper plastic replica is sold to fans with a warning label. Batters cannot wear it a any level of baseball. The thing is certainly NOT a batting helmet anymore. It can be worn on the baseball field. It is a fielder's helmet. I believe John Olerud only wore it on the field and then wore a batting helmet to the plate. I have one in front of me and the label reads "American Baseball Company, Pro No Ear Helmet." I have another one in front of me and the label reads "American Baseball Company, Adult Fielding Helmet." Stop calling it a batting helmet when it is NOT.

Okay Mr. Expert, the one Johnny Bench is wearing is a batting helmet. The ones Ozzy Smith and Garry Templeton wore were batting helmets. Nobody was even talking about the cheap replicas here. Some of us here can remember when helmets had no ear flap. Just because batters cannot wear them any longer does not mean that they cease to be batting helmets. They did not used to be batting helmets, they still are batting helmets. Get a clue.

I thought we were talking about masks.:confused:

Another Foul Tip?
 

Which would you like me to pass, the Russian or Ranch dressing? I think I have already acknowledged your argument in my helmet posts. It is as much a batting helmet as a Ford Model T is a car. However, I cannot BUY said helmet/automobile today, nor tomorrow, at average market helmet/car value. Get my drift yet? Pudge Rodriguez wears a batting helmet at the plate and a fielder's helmet behind the plate. He does not wear a catcher's helmet (acceptable) or a batting helmet (unacceptable) underneath his mask to catch.

I got a LEGAL clue. As someone has correctly pointed out; one can not legally wear that thing into a batter's box. A batter must wear a helmet, but NOT that one. There is a difference, a legal one. It use to be a legal batting helmet. It is now against the law to market a batting helmet with no ear flaps. It has ceased to be recognized as an "officially approved" batter's helmet or batting helmet. Read the labels carefully and avoid litigation.

SDS: Don't take me too seriously on this. You know I enjoy the give and take part of it.

Pwl
 

I agree. According to Elias Raines played games in 2002 and GG in 2000. I have sent this information to Uni-Watch.

Thanks for the correction.

Regards,

You say potato, I say potato...You say batting helmet, I say....OLD batting helmet! ;)

JJ

You say potato, I say spud.:)

In order, no, not particularly, not that I know of, and didn't give it any thought.