Freddy, another interesting thing about abolishing the balloon chest protectors was that it changed the calling of the strike zone.
If you watch a ballgame, every so often they will graphically “show” you the strike zone. Typically, it gets shown with the top being at the batter’s belt line. The real strike zone is from the armpits to the top the knees.
With the old balloon protectors, umpires were more upright and hence the true, higher strike got called. Now, I’ve seen pitches at the batter’s ankles get called strikes. Not to mention, because the umpires were centered and not looking over the catcher’s right shoulder, they could see the actual width of the plate much better.