Obviously:

That is a football shirt; it has a byron collar and a pocket. There is another 100% polyester shirt which costs $10 more. The link I provided was an economy line football shirt.

Some (many) of you need to take a step back and realize that all of these little things don't matter. Almost none of the players nor managers are going to notice that the OC shirt has wider stripes and none of them are going to care. No one is going to look at some plate shoes and say "gosh, the white vector on the side is just too big." No one is going to say "why is the base umpire wearing Davis brand pants which don't match standard charcoal pants?" I've read on here that some guys have shirts with US flags attached and shirts without flags so that they can match their partner no matter if his shirts have flags or not...I find that very amusing as it doesn't matter at all.

As Kyle said it makes no sense why some of you guys hate on certain color umpire shirts yet wear a shirt of that same color around town all day.

I've got some black pants and a short sleeved white shirt hanging in the closet - and wouldn't they look sharp with a thin black tie, dinner jacket, and a snappy little black beanie?

JJ

Last week was the first time I got to break out my white shirt (my partner was the guy who advised me that area umpires were using them) and actually heard a couple comments from players that hadn't seen them before. I tell ya, when it's 98 degrees for a 7PM start, I noticed the difference. Made the game pretty dang tolerable.

I definitely take it off and hang it up BEFORE the post game hotdog though. :D:D

I have both white's. The one with red/blue trim and the one with black trim. BEST shirt to wear on those HOT sunny days. Plus the open mesh breathes a little.

Absolutely untrue. If you don't match, it's noticed. If the shade of your shirt doesn't match, or if you're wearing some cheap, see-through fabric, or some non-standard color--whether it looks good or not--it's noticed. And if you're wearing some attention-grabbing shoes, it's noticed. Salt stains, fading, wrinkles, dusty shoes ... it's all noticed. Not by all, but by some.

At least, that's the way it is where I work.

Let me tell ya, EVERYONE noticed when we rolled out like this.

If you put your ear really close to the monitor, you can hear the calliope music playing.
http://www.leaguelineup.com/rbvll/photos/umpires.jpg

The polo blue is the correct shade.

And, to put it in perspective, the navy from honings didn't match the navy from +POS which didn't match the Navy from Cliff Keen which didn't match .....

No one seemed to care then.

And, although I watch far less MLB than some of you and I certainly don't pay as much attention to the umpires when I do, it seems to me that they are wearing black shirts with a wider stripe now than they used to. (Having said that, I also agree that OC has gone overboard with the width of the stripe).

True about the navy.

The polo blues that I've seen are darker than any other brand's polo blue. At least the collars and sleeves look right on their polo blue though.

Don't get me started on their cream. I don't even like cream to begin with, but theirs takes it to another level.

Maybe the other brands are wrong? ;)

Many of them are just the powder blue, with a different trim. I've seen some that are like the powder, but with a greenish tint added.

I think (but I might be wrong) that Honigs came out with the first polo blue. The OC matches that.

The OC polo blue is much darker, with sort of a gray mixed in, than any other makers. And their navy is also much darker.

By themselves, they're actually pretty good looking. But they don't match any other manufacturer's shirts.

Did I mention what the chocolate shirt matches?

(Hint: What's brown, and sounds like a bell?)

Is that you working the plate?

How many people notice? After a game if you polled both of the teams as well as the spectators and asked them if they noticed anything about the trim on the umpires' shirts what percentage would be able to tell you that one had wider stripes? And what percentage of them would say that the difference in stripes bothered them?

I never said that shoes with a logo would not be noticed. I said no one would care. No player is sitting in the dugout and saying "I can't believe that guy is wearing those shoes on the field." Of course people will notice whatever color shirt the umpire is wearing but they will not care. It is an umpire shirt and it is fine with them.

Dirty, wrinkled pants with holes is different. You seem to equate that to using a "non-standard color" of shirt. I don't even know how you define a "non-standard color". Wasn't navy non-standard when it first came out? Polo blue had never been seen until a few years ago but not it is common.

There were differences in the sleeve trim width also, correct? On a navy shirt the red stripe would be thin but the bottom white stripe would be very thick.

Did you mean lamé?

http://img2.allposters.com/images/DES/D879.jpg

I have some OC shirts and other brands, so I can always match my partner.