Highest Rating Received Among Umpire Suppliers

Ump-Attire.com currently has the highest umpire supplier rating at Umpire Empire, a discussion board and reviews site specifically for umpires.

Our rating of 95% is the highest among all suppliers including Gerry Davis (86%) and Honig's (77%).

Suppliers are rated by umpires from a variety of levels in the following categories:

• Service
• Selection
• Returns
• Ease of shopping
• Prices
• Products in stock
• Overall
  

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Christmas Brunch Photos '08

The spread courtesy of my wife Lori.



The resident married couple - Paul and Jeanne



Me with wife Lori.



The line begins.



Son Ben and Lori

Thanks to staff who presented me with a gift that will last the whole year long - a membership in the beer-of-the-month club.

Most Comprehensive Umpire Shin Guards Buying Guide Ever Could Also Be Driest

I have updated our umpire shin guards buying guide for the second time this year, this time with so much additional information that this has to be the most comprehensive buying guide ever written on umpire shin guards (at least on brands we retail). Does Guinness keep a record on this subject?

You'll find the following new points of emphasis:

• Learn why, of all parts of the leg anatomy, the thigh is the one that needs the least protection.
• Read about the purpose of the floating "knee", the one that rests below the one where your knee rests.
• Focus on the benefits of the different knee styles (e.g. 1, 2 and 3) including that double-knees are generally more comfortable and less cumbersome
  
• More emphasis on sizing and greater explanation that sizes are not determined by total shin guard length
• Find out that triple-knee shin guards are generally best for very tall umpires not because they are longer overall but because they are typically the only ones that come in a longer fit size.
• Get lectured about wearing plate shoes instead of the built-in foot protection provided by some umpire shin guards
• Prices added for additional comparison

The only problem with the now much longer resource is that it's now perhaps the driest buying guide on umpire shin guards ever written as well. Read the new buying guide here at your own risk.

Blog Gets Minor Face Lift

No, you haven't landed on a different blog. I've made some long overdue changes to "Officially-Unofficial's" color scheme. So it's out with the default Blogger colors of green/blue/tan color and in with the more familiar Ump-attire.com color scheme of red/blue/gray.

That's also still me on the right, but with an updated pic.

C- Grade to Safety Study on Traditional vs. Hockey Style Mask

One of my favorite college courses was "Experimental Psychology". No, we didn't shock people or anything like that. The course taught its students how to review scientific studies and pick them apart for the purpose understanding reliability and validity in research studies.

Ok, I know I now sound like a nerd, but what I truly got most out of the class was an awareness to not believe everything you see and hear; in any field whether it be in science, politics or even in advertising. A specific example of the latter, I recall my professor discussing that results of the Pepsi Challenge were skewed to always favor Pepsi due to the order in which drinks were presented. Were you aware of that?

I couldn't help but reflect on my sophomore level class after reading the article of an experiment performed by 4 seniors from Kettering University - that's Flint, Michigan (I had to look it up) that compared the safety of a traditional catcher's style mask with that of a hockey style helmet. Their findings may surprise you, at least upon the first read.

You can read the full article here or read more below where I discuss my concerns with the study, mention one interesting potential finding you may not have thought about and present other unanswered questions we'd all like to know for sure.


Their first conclusion was that hockey style helmets protect better from impacts to the side of the head. No surprise there. That's been the conventional wisdom for some time but the manner in which they tested it was completely flawed. The testing procedure of the side impact must have assumed that when a catcher (or umpire) gets hit on the side that he or she moves by turning his or her head 90 degrees so that the impact is taken directly onto the side. If you are a knowledgeable umpire, you know that you're taught not to react or to flinch so that not only can you make the call but also so that protection remains in all the right places.

Specifically, they launched a ball from a skeet shooter (beside the point is "why not use a pitching machine?") directly from the side into the helmet's side. Now you and I know the beauty of a hockey style helmet is its steep angles that results in most balls hitting the side as glancing blows, not direct ones. Their methodology didn't allow for determining this force, the one of a more typical indirect hit. The overall results were still the same, of course, and that is the hockey style did better on the side.

But you know, at that angle, how did the traditional style mask stand a chance? There's no protection at all from a direct impact to the side. The only possible direct one there might come from a bat (has been known to happen... even from a broken one), a foul ball that careened from the backstop (you know who you are) or a beer thrown from the crowd (ok, I made that one up).

The second conclusion the Kettering students made was that traditional style masks performed better on frontal impacts. What? Yes, you might want to re-read that line. They tested this using the same skeet shooter and launching a direct hit onto the front center of each protective head piece. At first glance, this flies in the face of conventional wisdom in that the perception is that hockey style helmets are more protective in all situations. However, the frontal or "nose" shot tested to each was only one dead center shot. It sure would have been nice to have seen a range of locations in the front rather than one location out of many.


Regardless, their study and second conclusion does lead to an interesting point. Is there a place on a hockey style helmet that is as flat as that on traditional style masks to allow for the same or greater force from a baseball (or softball)? Looking at helmets from Wilson, Diamond and Pro Nine (they tested All-Star gear BTW), this is certainly worth considering in the Diamond and Pro Nine brands (All Star and most others, too) with their flatter middle fronts.

Overall, in my opinion, the students would have done better to have concluded that

"We've found there is one small area where helmets could offer no better or less protection than that of masks, but we didn't really go all out by testing multiple hits, hit locations and/or angles."

Other Thoughts

• The study mentions that despite there being force differences between the 2 styles, that no force readings on either using the angles and velocity they tested would have resulted in any concussions. This was even the case considering they were launching the ball 100 MPH onto the youth helmet they used as testing for the helmet.
  
• It doesn't appear All-Star was very happy about them using their mask for this test and appears that they asked for a disclaimer (and an apology) as seen at the bottom of the article.
• Despite my mostly negative critique, I do applaud the students on many levels including bringing attention onto this important issue. Not only did they do a better job than I would have done at their age, I also assume that their project's parameters were probably limited from the start.
  

I'd like to see more studies done in this regard, and it would be nice to see not only general comparisons but other comparisons that might provide more useful answers to more practical questions such as these:

• Physics dictates a flatter low profile umpire mask will divert less force than a more curved standard one, but how much less and is this a significant difference?
• More padding between the ball and you as in Wilson's wrap around padding is more protective than one with less padding but how much more protective and how significant is this difference to umpires at various levels?
• At what point do masks with lighter weight frames become less protective than those with heavier weights? (A good question proposed by Warren Workman of Umpire-Empire.com).

At least that's my take on it. What thoughts do you have?

Find New Balance MF995 Field Shoes Here First

Our initial shipment of 2009 New Balance All-Black MF995 Field Umpire/Referee Shoes arrived yesterday. And despite a few others who jumped the gun in pre-selling these when New Balance requested that we hold off, we are currently the only retailer with these in stock and available for shipping.

Preliminary indications are that we'll stock more versions of New Balance's new field shoe than other officials' retailers with low cut (MF995LBK) in standard D and EE wide widths and mid cut (MF995MBK) in D width.

The shoe, which is good for use in baseball, softball, football, lacrosse and any other outdoor sport is really nice. The low cut is based on New Balance's 995 cross-training shoe you may have seen elsewhere last year but in an all-black finish and without the royal blue in the sole. It's adds an outer design with both flat and shiny elements that result in a very unique and attractive shoe.

The availability of the mid cut will serve as our first available field shoe in this style which has been greatly needed in our overall shoe selection.

We'll continue to have stock of the popular MU350LK model from the last 2 years in most sizes through much of spring 2009. The MU350LKs are on sale right now, but we don't plan to treat this shoe as a closeout item. So, you'll have a choice, at least for a while of the low-cuts, between two different styles within the same brand.

For further information and additional views, click their links or the images.

So do you like the new design or prefer the MU350LK model? Would love to here your thoughts.

The Grinch Who Crashed the Postal Service Server

Two things you can count each Holiday season: One is an airing of the animated Dr. Seuss classic starring the Grinch himself and the other is the crashing of the United States Postal Service server that provides real-time shipping quotes at checkout. Coincidence? I don't think so!

Only someone with a heart two sizes too small would allow such a thing to happen on one of our busiest shopping days of the year.

But the Grinch didn't stop Christmas sales "from coming! They came! Somehow or other" ...perhaps it was the $2 discount we gave on UPS shipping... "they came just the same!"

Our Bad Guesses Lead to Your Good Deals

As we have grown substantially in the nearly 3 years I've owned Ump-Attire.com, we are seeing more opportunity to provide sales with some significant discounts. It's not my thing really. I don't want to be the guy that screams "We're Slashing Prices! Biggest Deals Ever! Hurry on Down Before It's Too Late!" I worry about that perception each time we announce a sale.

The growth thing comes into play because as you grow you have to plan ahead more for what you expect to sale way before each season begins (at least on most items). We don't get the luxury of seeing a few weeks into the season what's hot and what's not before deciding. If we wait at this level, attempting to buy more of our top selling basketball pant or umpire chest protector mid-season, there's a good chance we're not going to be able to get it.

And if we can't get it, we can't sell it. And if we can't sell it, then we've lost an opportunity to make money on it. And worse, you just may go elsewhere to get it.

But in planning ahead, it's impossible to guess right every time. When we miss under, we hope we'll figure that out ASAP and that more are available from suppliers. When we miss over, especially a lot over, we consider providing an incentive through a discounted price or coupon if you're a subscriber to our e-mail newsletter.

In looking at the latest End of Year Clearance, some items are closeouts with limited sizes (see Majestic referee shirts), some we got incredible buys on (see Spot-bilt patent basketball shoes), and many items are going to be changing a little so that we hope to start with as fresh a supply as possible before our next shipment arrives (see Smitty umpire pants and plate shoes).

But some items, we guessed badly for one reason or another. Ever hear in commercials for auto dealers, carpets and furniture, "Help! We bought too much! We need to clear inventory before next year's come in!"? What you can't help is but wonder if that's a true reason or just a gimmick. If it's a gimmick, I'm not sure if I'm advanced enough to pull that off. If it's true, then I'm starting to understand where they are coming from.

Three of these bad guessed items that stick out are:

• CCA Basketball Jackets
  Last year, college basketball officials were required to buy a new jacket style. They had '07 and '08 to start wearing this jacket. While our sales of it were solid last year, we took the route that demand would actually go up as a result of the impending deadline.
  
  Nope. College officials are not procrastinators and the overwhelming majority bought them last year. The only consolation prize to us is that I've heard several other retailers being in the same boat with us on this one. Your prize - if you need one or an extra one - is a price that honestly pains me to put in place.
  
  
• New Balance Field Shoes
  New Balance told us they were closing out of their popular field shoe (our most popular, too) in September of this year. And that there would be no more available until June '09. We were bummed, but managed to buy enough to last us through fall and what we have hoped to be at least half of spring '09. Well... New Balance changed their mind in October - as suppliers sometimes do - and we had maybe 150 or so more pairs than we needed.
  
  
• Richardson 485 Style Football Caps
  One of things we do in "guessing" demand for an item is looking at demand from the previous season - along with other things. On this item, we hadn't taken into consideration that another style was out of stock for much of 2007's peak football season, leading to inflated past sales of this one. We didn't take that into consideration and now we have maybe 100 or so too many and a humbling reminder that we are only human. C'est la vie.

Enjoy our bad guesses and your good deals.

Competitors Let New Shoes Secret Out of the Box

I've been noticing that 2 of our main competitors have been advertising a certain brand's new base umpire shoes as coming soon. I find that very interesting considering dealers were strictly told not to market these in any way - especially not to post them online - until we had them in hand and ready to go.

Hmmmm. We'll continue to keep our promise - as have the 15 or so other companies that will likely sell at least one of the styles as soon as the appropriate time comes. Sleeping better at night is much more important to me than pre-selling shoes.

Umpire Protective Gear Return Rates Show Bigger is Better

We hate returns. We want our customers to love what they get, have it fit and keep it. Overall, our return rates on all items are way below what the online industry average is.

Having low return rates indicate that customers are generally happy with what they ordered and it fits. If a product had high return rates for ALL sizes, that would indicate to us that the product is not well-liked or its description is less than adequate.

However, what we find is that return rates on umpire protective gear is higher (and higher is worse) on the smaller size options of an item than on larger ones. So are smaller people harder to please? Unless you are talking about my kids (and perhaps yours), I wouldn't think so.

Here are some specific numbers we found from 2008 that back that up:

• Diamond DLG Shin Guards
  -The 17" size had a solid rate of 3.4% (meaning only 1 out of around 30 people who bought it returned it)
  -The 15" was a nearly double 7.6% return rate (a pretty high 1 out of 13)
  
  
• Wilson-Davis Chest Protector
  -13" was returned at a 4.2% rate (not the best, but much better than the smaller)
  -11" was returned at 7.8%
  
  
• Wilson West Vest Platinum Chest Protector
  -When just 1 size option (13.5") was available prior to 2008, the return rate of the Platinum was a wonderfully low 1.6%
  -The new 11" smaller size exhibited a staggering 20% return rate! No need to grab a calculator... mine says that's 1-in-5.
  
  
• Diamond's DLGiX3 Shin Guards
  -18 1/2" - 0% (that's right, no returns for the largest)
  -17" - 3.1%
  -15 1/2" - 8.4% ("yucky" is a word that comes to mind)
  

By the way, you can find return rates on most items and their sizes as well as how each protective gear item sold compared to similar items. Just browse to an item's page on the website and look for "Customer Popularity and Satisfaction". And all this info is updated based on 2008 info.

Ok, what are we saying here? That we should not sell small sizes in any umpire gear? Obviously not. There is certainly a market for small sizes - even for those 80% who bought and kept the smaller Wilson platinum. Basically, we are saying that if you have any doubt on which size to get, any doubt at all, or if you are in between sizes that the best bet is to size up.

Measuring yourself by our guidelines before purchasing doesn't hurt either.

Although people might think we're crazy for sharing this inside information, not shared by any of our competitors, we're hoping it will provide a greater impact on your decision-making than just us saying, "Hey, size up one size when in doubt already, won't ya'?!."

Although I don't expect a -0- return rate to ever occur, next year I hope to blog with a post listing new lower returns numbers for smaller sizes.
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So which categories of protective gear are returned more often? Here's some other stats that might be of interest to you:

• Umpire Masks are returned less frequently - 2.3% - than other protective gear. For one, there are no sizes involved. And two, masks are more similar than other gear, thus leaving less room for controversy.
  
  
• Umpire Chest Protectors return rates are a rather reasonable 3.0%.
  
  
• Umpire Shin Guards could use some more improvement with a 7.0% return rate - proving that shin guards win the prize as the toughest umpire protective gear category to get just right the first time.
  

Related Post from 6.4.07
I Hate Returns: Reduce Them with Knowledge