I met a guy last night at a gathering of Duke alumni. He said he was an umpire in the 1990's in the ACC.
He said his association of umpires had a contract to do a lot of non conference games in North Carolina, and each year the Umpire-in-Chief would have a preseason meeting of all the umpires. He would say:
"Gentlemen, I want you always to keep in mind, when umpiring these games when the kids up north come down to play: Remember who signs our checks!"
He said it was that overt. And he said that coaches could blackball individual umpires from officiating their games, which added to the pressure to call bang bangers a certain way.
Is this guy blowing smoke?
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