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I did LL boys and Fast pitch girls (youth level, 0-3 years of experience) what is that 9-13 years old?  (I did this while age 16-22)
I will openly admit to the following regarding strike zones, and I made this clear to the coaches before the game.  (the league wanted to encourage kids to swing and to try and avoid endless walk parades).  I really liked that bias.

My strike zone got big, as in wide, and definitely high strike particularly if we had two kids who simply were struggling to throw strikes.   More often than not, one of the two teams had a kid that could pitch and she would either dominate or more or less throw strikes all game.   I never pinched the zone.   If a girl (and usually this only happened in fast pitch, not LL) was a high quality pitcher, I wouldn't give her strikes off the plate, but I would never pinch a kid's zone.    The few times, I filled in or worked with my older brother doing high school level, if I ever did the plate, I never pinched a zone, but I did call the high strike, but wouldn't give it wide the way I would at younger levels.  

I would also call kids out that threw the bat.  I made this abundantly clear before the game to the coaches and the kids.    'We all know you can't throw the bat.  this is the warning.  you will be called out if you throw the bat when leaving the batter's box.'

I offered to coach rec soccer even after my kids moved on in our community and the lady said "What we need are refs", so I took the course and became a soccer ref, usually U11 or U14 and U17, which was coed.  The U17 was fun, in part because I often would be the only ref that showed up, so I got paid $70 instead of $35.  The kids were mostly great, if the ball went out across the field and I made the wrong call, they'd turn around and point the other way, all of them, and I'd change the call.

You can imagine the parents, and kids, and the U11/14 levels, often very aggressive and loud, and the coaches often didn't know the rules.  In soccer, if a ball is kicked in an arc that goes OB in the air, it's called OB and play is stopped.  The ball has to cross the OB line entirely, not touch it.  The offsides rule wasn't understood by many refs.  It could be a nice way to spend a nice Saturday morning at times, or not.

I did LL boys and Fast pitch girls (youth level, 0-3 years of experience) what is that 9-13 years old?  (I did this while age 16-22)
I will openly admit to the following regarding strike zones, and I made this clear to the coaches before the game.  (the league wanted to encourage kids to swing and to try and avoid endless walk parades).  I really liked that bias.

My strike zone got big, as in wide, and definitely high strike particularly if we had two kids who simply were struggling to throw strikes.  More often than not, one of the two teams had a kid that could pitch and she would either dominate or more or less throw strikes all game.  I never pinched the zone.  If a girl (and usually this only happened in fast pitch, not LL) was a high quality pitcher, I wouldn't give her strikes off the plate, but I would never pinch a kid's zone.    The few times, I filled in or worked with my older brother doing high school level, if I ever did the plate, I never pinched a zone, but I did call the high strike, but wouldn't give it wide the way I would at younger levels. 

I would also call kids out that threw the bat.  I made this abundantly clear before the game to the coaches and the kids.    'We all know you can't throw the bat.  this is the warning.  you will be called out if you throw the bat when leaving the batter's box.'

I was umping a game once and a girl hit the ball and flung the bat directly into my face mask.  If it would have been 3 inches lower it would have shattered my collarbone because the chest protector I had on didn’t really fit me.  I stopped the game and gave her a stern talking to but didn’t toss her.

The next time she came up to bat she hit the ball and flung the bat toward her own dugout nearly hitting the kid on deck.  This time I tossed her and chewed her ass out.  I wanted to wring that kid’s neck.

I think there are a couple of guys who mentioned they either umpire or used to umpire so I wanted to get some feedback.

In the last month or so I’ve had the opportunity to talk to two different youth league umpires on two different occasions who do baseball and softball games.  Youth league means ranging from little league to high school.

Anyway, both guys openly admitted (and defended) not calling strikes on pitches that were strikes.  The first guy said he doesn’t call the high strike.  If it’s above the belly button he just doesn’t call it. When I asked him why he said he feels it’s a tough pitch for younger hitters to hit and lay off of.  He said he offsets that by  usually calling pitches strikes that may be just below the knees.

The second guy said he doesn’t call the inside strike.  To be more precise, he’ll call it but only if the entire ball crosses over the white portion of the plate. If a portion of the ball knicks the corner he won’t call it.  His reasoning was that pitch is almost impossible to hit without jamming a kid up.  He said, “these kids aren’t major leaguers.  They can’t handle that pitch.”

  I’ve always known umpires had different strike zones but I guess I always thought it was something they weren’t consciously aware of.  These guys are openly admitting there are pitches they know are strikes but won’t call.

My daughter starts high school in the fall and will probably be her school’s number 1 pitcher.  Through little league and middle school she was a pretty dominant pitcher against the relatively weak competition she faced.  On a couple different occasions I’ve had umpires come up to me after games to compliment her on her pitching and add good naturedly “I was pinching her a little. They didn’t have a chance against her and calling the corners just seemed unfair.”

How standard is this among umps?

Strike zones are always going to vary by umpire. My strike zone, as a very tall man who has to be in a full crouch to get to the right height, might shade a little higher than shorter umps, but I always do my damndest to have the same strike zone all day. I don't like it when other umpire not only pinch a pitcher, but brag about it. I tend to shade towards more strike zone, not less. Especially if the pitchers are struggling. I've unintentionally pinched the zone plenty, and so has any other umpire who's been behind the plate. There are always going to be a few pitches in a game that you like a lot less than others. But when that happens, my next thought is something to the effect of "Damn! That was a strike, and I passed! Throw that one again and I won't make that mistake!" 

The nicest thing I can say about umpire #1 is that he must be thinking of the NCAA definition of the strike zone height. NCAA is bottom of the sternum, whereas all other codes define the top of the strike zone as the armpit. 

As for the second umpire, WTF? That inside corner pitch is an essential part of the strike zone.

The strike zone on the outside corner is a lot further out than many also think it is, and that's the toughest pitch to call consistently. Hittability has nothing to do with strikes. I called several such outside pitches a strike in my state tourney semifinal despite the catcher setting up in the LHB batters box. If we're going for hittability, a batter earlier in the day hammered that exact same pitch onto the slowpitch warning track, ~265 feet from home plate.

We have umpires at fantasy camp of course, they are college or minor league guys.  With six teams, you have two per game, six total, and in the championship game, they have all six on the field, which is kinda neat really in a pointless kind of way.  They enjoy it, we josh with them a fair bit, some of them recognize me with my white hair.  There even is the occasional argument.

Last time, I was on first, with a runner on second with one out and the batter hit a pop up right at third base in fair territory.  I was off the bag about 15 feet basically heading back to first when the third basemen misplayed it.  He picked it up, stepped on third, and threw to second, I was so confused I wasn't even trying to run.  Our coach had some words about the IFFR of course with the ump, who very clearly blew that call, and had some total BS about why it wasn't an IFFR at all.  The pop up didn't even pass the  baseline, it was "normal effort", the defender just misplayed it (it happens).  It probably cost us the game, I was annoyed but didn't say anything.

 My experience with infield fly isn’t that it’s called incorrectly but people misinterpret that the play is dead and runners can’t advance if the ball is dropped. I’ve seen a couple of parents throw fits because they didn’t know the rule.

Since we’re in this thread I have another question from something that happened in one of my daughter’s games last year.  We were playing a game with only one ump.

We were in the last inning of a tight game with runners on 2nd and 3rd.  Our batter laid a bunt down and our runner on third got caught in a rundown. The catcher threw it into left field and our runner came into score.  The ump calls her safe, she runs into the dugout, and our next batter is coming up to the plate.

The opposing coach comes out of the dugout and proceeds to have a lengthy conversation with the umpire.  After a few minutes the ump calls our runner who scored out for running outside the base path.

What is the protocol for appealing a call when there is only one umpire?  I would think if he were going to call that he could have (or should have) called it as it occurred. The way it appeared was the coach talked him into the call.

That one has always bugged me.  It killed our rally and we went on to lose the game in the bottom half the inning.  My wife, who was an assistant, got tossed for arguing the call.  That was actually the best part.  I still give her crap for getting ran.