Maybe not, but according to this interesting Yahoo article, MLB umpires are "more likely to call strikes for pitchers of the same race or ethnicity". The University of Texas released the study, which covers the 2004-2006 seasons. Oddly enough, this story is getting significantly less press than the similar study conducted about NBA referees (which was big news when it appeared in the NY Times). Draw whatever conclusions you want from that (for example: "Yep, there is a double-standard when it comes to covering the NBA").
Okay, let's start with the ethnic breakdown of umpires in MLB. At the start of the study period, there were 70 umpires. 2 were African-American (Chuck Meriwether and Kerwin Danley). 65 were white Caucasian. There was one Mexican, one Dominican, and one Jamaican.
According to Deadspin, there are now 72 umpires, 66 white. One other non-white umpire has been added through the study period, not sure what ethnicity.
There aren't many black pitchers. Maybe five? CC Sabathia, Dontrelle Willis and Tom Gordon jump to mind. There are a couple more I believe.
So in the case of black pitcher-white umpire, or vice versa, this study can't have had a large amount of sample size. Doesn't mean the data is wrong, just saying that couldn't have been the focus of the study too much.
But that last word ("ethnicity") makes a big difference. See there are a lot of Hispanic and Asian pitchers in MLB. So if Cuban (El Duque, Conteras), Dominicans (Pedro Martinez), Venezuelans (every good pitcher in baseball it seems - Carlos Zambrano, Santana, Freddy Garcia, et al), Asian (Wang, Dice-K - though he is not in the survey period) are being umped differently than white pitchers (71% of MLB pitchers are white), well... that's a big deal. Especially when you considered this study analyzed 2.1 million pitches thrown over those three seasons.
In case you are wondering how this effects hitters:
"Interestingly enough, Hamermesh's research found that the race of the batter didn't seem to matter - the correlation was only between the pitcher and the home-plate umpire."
Another interesting finding:
"The highest percentage of strikes were called when both the home-plate umpire and pitcher were white, and the lowest percentage were called between a white ump and a black pitcher. The study also found that minority umpires judged Asian pitchers more unfairly than they did white pitchers."
What else? Well, though the bias was clearly found, the effect of it is very marginal. According to the survey, it "effects less than one pitch per game".
Well, this was all a waste of time then, wasn't it? Thanks for proving white people are (unconscious) biased, though!
No, wait... it does mean something. From the paper's set of conclusions:
"Finally, game outcomes are influenced by the race/ethnicity match between starting pitchers and home plate umpires. Home teams are more (less) likely to win a game when their starting pitcher and home plate umpire have the same (a different) race/ethnicity."
Wow. One - sorry Tom Gordon, you don't matter anymore. Two - yeah, you know how anal managers are about playing the percentages, this guy bats .400 against LHP named Vance during day games, etc.? Can you imagine what Tony LaRussa is going to do with this kind of data? He'll start a white pitcher just because the umpire is white, then take him out in the second inning!
For the full paper, click here. For the FAQ from the paper, click here.
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Indeed. That one strike per game that was called a ball must have made Ponson throw his next 8 pitches over the plate!
Yeah, I'm not sure what the point of this survey is. It sounds like a good idea, but it didn't really do much for me. I think that, even with the bias umpires against them, Venezuelan pitchers are still the best in baseball. So that backs up the claim that it barely effects but around 1 pitch a game.
On the other hand, drawing out the conclusion of the study to other situations. Are Hispanic/black/Asian runners more likely to be called out on close plays? What if the fielder making the tag is the same ethnicity? What if it is a white fielder and a minority runner?
Really all this paper does is prove that there is some(unconscious or otherwise) bias in umpiring. It doesn't prove that it makes a difference. In fact, it seems to indicate that it doesn't effect the game, really.
So is this something that MLB should do anything about right now? Nah. But I would like to see more studies, to see if maybe this "bias" that they found effects the game in any other manner. Are Hispanics/Blacks more likely to get ejected more by umpires? That might be a study worth checking out....
A few notes (which I should probably add to the post):
Sabernomics has a good discussion on this topic.
There were 93 umpires sampled, and 8 were nonwhite (5 black, 3 hispanic).
The commenters over there at discussing QuesTec, and noting that this would seem to be a good reason to bring it back. I've always agreed with that - I'm strongly in favor of automating umpiring and officiating as much as possible. It cracks me up that we're still on 19th century technology for umpiring (i.e. human eyes) when there is so much we could be doing to update the field.
Are there really that few black pitchers?! The only one I could think of adding was Ray King of the Nats, and that's only because I'm watching the game.
What if they surveyed ump's reactions to pitcher's based on salaries? Are umps more likely to give a 15 mil. dollar a year pitcher a call than one earning the league minimum? Things that make you go HMMM......
SML, good story. I didn't hear about this. I agree with you that even if there is no major outcome to point to there is still value in exposing how what most likely is unconscious bias operates. I will check out the other links...
2 were African-American (Chuck Meriwether and Kerwin Danley).
What about CB Bucknor? Is he the Dominican or Jamaican? His punch-outs crack me up.
This also explains Sidney Ponson's fall from grace. Not 1 Aruban umpire in the majors.