Study: Race and Umpires
The following study, conducting by the University of Texas, contends that umpires call more strikes for pitchers of their own race. While I don’t dispute that, I wonder what the result would be when the race of an umpire and hitter are compared. It’s shortsighted to eliminate the hitter from the equation.
Batter Out: Umpires Likely to Favor Pitchers of the Same Race or Ethnicity;
Game Attendance and Electronic Monitoring Mitigate Behavior
August 15th, 2007 at 8:19 pm
Agreed. I saw the same article, and it looks like they whipped this up for the sake of throwing something controversial out there. An interesting idea, if done right, though.
Unfortunately, any research involving black pitchers in the MLB these days would fall under the “small sample size” caveat.