New Study Points To MLB Umpires Discriminating Against Non-White Players

When you’re talking about sports, you can’t help but not want to talk about race, but the truth is, race is always a factor. A new study suggests MLB umpires discriminate against non-white players, according to Hank Snowdon, who is a student at Claremont McKenna. Snowdon’s research pointed towards umpires making more advantageous calls when their race was the same as the person receiving the advantage.

The difference amounts to 0.3 percent according to Baseball Prospectus, which adds up over time.

“These effects are small, but also large enough to be noticeable. Mistaken calls are about 0.3 percentage points more likely due to race effects, according to the study. Snowdon estimates that umpires called about 18,000 pitches differently over the 13-year period of the study because of racial bias, meaning a little more than a thousand changed calls per year. Any individual player might only receive a handful of these in a season, but for Black players in the league already struggling against discrimination in other regards, any additional barrier is a significant problem.”

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A New Study Shows Umpire Discrimination Against Non-White Players
by @No_Little_Planshttps://t.co/fEOCFSLz5e pic.twitter.com/qx86bitjNd

— Baseball Prospectus (@baseballpro) August 13, 2021

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Just another reason for people to say human umps should be replaced by Robots.

Robots are not going to care what the color of your skin is.

Well that is unless someone programs them to. . .

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