[ksushi]

My brother is an umpire in the minors, my best friends dad is an umpire in the major leagues. Anecdotally, I know how they operate. They aren't the official rules, but rookies have to earn the corners. They have to develop a reputation in the bigs before they get the calls. Especially when someone consistently has trouble spotting their fastball, they don't get the benefit of the doubt. Umps rep partly based on reputation. Regardless of how much research you and your buddy dan wanna do, its what happens.

edited post to make people happy:

I don't accept the bias, there just isn't really much a way to change it. Some umpires feel like baseball gate keepers and you have to earn their strike calls. It sucks, sure, but the reason it doesn't bother me very much is that a lot of my love of the game comes from the human error involved in it. Umpires aren't perfect. Bias and blown calls come with the territory of giving umpires total control of the judgement of the game. I just accept it as part of the game.