MLB Umpires: Kinda Racist!

by Dan Fogarty | 10:24 am, September 9th, 2011

According to this piece, published in Science Daily, umpires (both white and non-white ones) give a slightly fatter strike zone to guys who look like them: “Analysis of 3.5 million pitches from 2004 to 2008 found that minority pitchers scale back their performance to overcome racial/ethnic favoritism toward whites by MLB home plate umpires, said economist Johan Sulaeman, a financial economist at Southern Methodist University in Dallas and a study author. The study found that minority pitchers reacted to umpire bias by playing it safe with the pitches they throw in a way that actually harmed their performance and statistics.”

[Science Daily via TBL]