Charges of “ism” — racism, sexism, agism, etc. — always make for hot topics and the media loves to jump on any information, sometimes a bit too quickly, or without fully understanding the material/source/etc.
Case in point: In the Aug. 13 edition of Time magazine, Katie Rooney asks the
button-pushing question “Are Baseball Umpires Racist?” She bases her article on “Strike Three: Umpires’ Demand for Discrimation,” a report by Christopher A. Parsons, Johan Sulaeman, Michael C. Yates, and Daniel S. Hamermesh from the University of Texas at Austin.
Known as the Hamermesh Report, it claims that home plate umpires, who can control the game through their calls of balls and strikes, show favoritism to pitchers of their own race, that is white umps favor white pitchers, African-Americans umps favor African-American pitchers, and Hispanic umps favor Hispanic pitchers (there are no Asian umpires).
From the article:
It doesn’t happen all the time — in about 1% of pitches thrown — but that’s still one pitch per game, and it could be the one that makes the difference. “One pitch called the other way affects things a lot,” says Hamermesh. “Baseball is a very closely played game.” What’s more, says Hamermesh, a slight umpire bias affects more than just the score; it also has an indirect effect on a team’s psyche. Baseball is a game of strategy. If a pitcher knows he’s more likely to get questionable pitches called as strikes, he’ll start picking off at the corners. But if he knows he’s at a disadvantage, he might feel forced to throw more directly over the plate, possibly giving up hits.
I’m no mathematician, but glancing through the report, it seems to me one could interpret several comments that might lead the read to believe that the report is inconclusive. As Phil Birnbaum, a member of SABR and operator of the Sabremetric Research blog notes, when comparing black/white UPM’s (Umpire/player matchups, as Hamermesh calls them):
Over more than 7,000 ballgames over three seasons, the two groups of umpires are five pitches away (original emphasis) from showing absolutely no racial bias. Obviously, that’s not statistically significant.
An FAQ that accompanies the Hamermesh report states, “We cannot (emphasis original) distinguish between conscious and unconscious bias by umpires.”
Now, granted, the saying goes there are lies, damn lies, and statistics, so I’m sure if people look hard enough, they can interpret any information to back up their argument or theory. But you have to be very careful when you try to get into the heads of a group of people to lump their actions together by means of psychological or sociological reasoning.
For reactions to the Time’s piece from Fannation.com, see here.
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