You still wear a hat with your mask though? ..... look bottom line is wear a hat with whatever you wear ... btw the hsm hung up on my liberty spiked mohawk too

I find it unprofessional to wear a that with a HSM. It's properly worn without a hat and wearing something improperly, to me, is unprofessional.

Standing around with messed up hair while talking to a coach with no hat on is unprofessional... which looks worse?

Says who? You'd better tell that to all-but-one of the Major League umpires that wear a helmet, then. Or officials in other sports that don't wear hats.

Wearing the mask too loosely (and potentially improperly) to squeeze a hat in there is stoopid. The only way that really works inside a helmet is backwards, so the bill can come out the gaps in the back panel. And that would be even worse to look at.

Besides, I keep my hair trimmed very short during baseball season.

I have mine professionally thinned, but that's beside the point. I'd find out who the Powers that Be were and talk with them about the hat requirement. Maybe I'd poll other HSM users in my area and find out what they think, and take that info as well to the higher-ups.

JJ

as do I but wearing a helmet with a hat does not comprimise the safety of it any more than wearing a mask with a hat

Eh, I just wouldn't work if this was a requirement OR I'd wear a mask.

But I'm not that passionate about the helmet to care about this except to say that it wasn't designed to wear with a hat, so why would people even try?

You've done the double blind studies, then? Please share the results.

If the case that it does change it then every single person who wears one loosely or has a pony tail even players shouldnt be aloud to wear them at all unless they are tight enough...

Also think about the physics of it ... how can a 4 stich hat(2inch brim) change the safety of the helmet? is the metal all of a sudden going to crack because its 2 inches further from your face no the properties of metal dont change the further from your face they are... otherwise good by to my car maybe itl crack open today on my way to a tournement... there isnt going to bea gap in the bottom so a ball to the throat isnt an issue... so what exactly is the nature of the "Lack of safety"

Would a poll of umpires by umpires qualify as double blind? ;)

Do I get to pick the umpires? :D

It depends who is the arbiter of what's professional. You can hardly equate not wearing a hat under an HSM with wearing jeans, loafers, or flip flops.

Times change, equipment changes and rules need to change with them. And yes any rule that states you have to wear a hat under an HSM is archaic. Dare I say any such rule is also stupid?

I'm sure there are old umpires somewhere that think we should all be wearing Elbeco shirts because the newer styles are "unprofessional". Maybe we should chuck innovation and go back to working the plate with bubbles because inside protectors look too modern.

It just compromises the comfort and makes it so the HSM doesn't fit as the manufacturer intended.

Wearing a hat which causes an HSM to sit farther from your face negates one of the great advantages of an HSM which is better vision. The reason you can see so much better with an HSM is that it sits closer to your face than a regular mask.

I remember a guy like this. He'd get miffed that I owned no Elbecos when I was scheduled to work with him. This was in 1999, when the navy pullover was the default uniform where I lived, but the Elbeco was still an approved shirt. Once the default shirt changed, I gleefully trashed all my Elbecos.