Cleaning & caring for umpire equipment

[bkbjones]

Originally Posted by wadeintothem

I have an older hat and I cant get the letters clean. I washed it in a washing machine, scrubbed them and still they stay dirty. I think it just comes from the long weekends of sweat/rinse/dry for tourneys because I dont use polish or oils on my mask, just soap and water occasionally. I dont wear it anymore but I had hoped to salvage the hat and gave it the college try.

I have VERY CAREFULLY used a bleach pen on the white letters of one cap that was really bad and it worked. It was risky, I think, because the bleach could have bled. ;Course the loss would have been what, $12. However, they do make laundry pens with concentrated detergent that could get the muck off the letters.