Baseball and UNC Charlotte

We are not known as a baseball powerhouse, but Mets pitcher John Maine was a star here just a few years ago. What I didn't know is that one of the NLCS umpires, Field Culbreth, also played baseball here and graduated in 1986.

Even ESPN radio announcer Dave Campbell joked about it on a recent flight from New York to St. Louis, at one point asking Culbreth if there was a "little conflict of interest."

"Are you kidding?," Culbreth said. "When I was at UNC Charlotte, he wasn't even born yet."