Top 10 What's Hot for Umpires in 2010

After reviewing your collective purchases for January, this is our current Top 10 "What's Hot" List for Umpires in 2010:

1. Reebok Umpire Plate Shoes
   As expected, umpires like Reebok's new lower weight and cosmetic changes. The New Balance is still our top selling plate shoe, but the Reeboks are doing much better than the Reebok styles of last year.
   
   
2. Diamond Featherweight Mask
   It's a little nerve-wracking, to be honest, to take your best selling mask and make a change to it. If ain't broke, don't fix it. Right? But that's what we did. We put our "Official" or "Umpire" shield logo in the center of the chin. And the response has been great. Whew!
   
   
3. Wilson Shock FX 2.0 Titanium Helmet
   Umpires are really digging the new features. Can I still say "digging" in 2010? Please someone correct me if not. We recently took photos of this worn from different angles - very sharp (should be up next week). The improvements we've been talking about are truly resulting in a great response.
   
   
4. Wilson Charcoal (A3217) Chest Protector
   I have been pushing this chest protector for some time. It's almost as protective as the other Wilson chest protectors at a much better price plus it has bicep protectors if you want them (removable if not). Maybe the message is starting to sink in.
   
   
5. Smitty Long Sleeve Umpire Shirts
   What a difference a price change makes (or maybe it's the weather?). We recently dropped the price of these $7, I think, maybe a little too much as these are really moving. So much, we will likely raise the price back up a few dollars. At this pace, we'll be out a lot sooner than we'd like. Ah, the economics of supply and demand. So the insider scoop is to order now before the increase.
   
   
6. Ultimate Umpire Ball Bags
   Can't be more happy with the reception of these bags over the last year. Mentioning them in our last 2 Referee Magazine ads hasn't hurt either.
   
   
7. Diamond Featherweight Shin Guards
   Honestly was a slow starter, but these have really taken off after we've been showing them off at meetings and after being named the top low profile shin guards in a Midwest Umpire Blog review.
   
   
8. Shock Doctor Long Compression Tights
   This is one of those products that arose directly from of the discussion boards. When I started reading on them about umpires buying these tights from Hockey websites, I was like, "Hey, we can get these!" We did and had Shock Doctor make a minor change of taking the Velcro off the thighs that hockey players use to keep their long socks up.
   
   
9. Diamond Hotsport Loose Fit Shirts
   If I had to put my finger on a reason, it's the reviews given by those at Umpire-Empire.com on these. Seriously, why buy Under Armour - not at somewhere at half the price used as an undershirt? I wear a few of these shirts for general wear and have had them for over a year, and they have held up very well.
   
   
10. Champro 4 Dial Optic Indicator
    I guess when you are the only balls-first 4-dial indicator on the market, things happen. We have sold so many of these, we are considering a special order to have our logo placed on them for 2011.

Note that there are a lot of honorable mentions in there as well including new Ultimate Umpire Shirts, All-Black Padding Titanium Mask and some others, but the above really stuck out as the top 10.

What's Hot Criteria: 80% sales increase or more compared to last January or new products that are selling at top or close to it in their categories.