Here’s a taste of today’s article on a recent study that tried to see if there was a racial bias in how umps call strikes and balls:
…. four academics released a study that found that Major League Baseball umpires called strikes at different rates depending on a pitcher’s ethnicity. Specifically, an umpire will — with all other matters such as game score and pitcher quality accounted for — call a pitch a strike about 1 percent more often if he and the pitcher are of the same race.
The variance in baseball was quite small, even smaller than basketball’s. But its mere existence — too great for randomness to excuse — was met with wonder by those who study implicit association, a usually subconscious racial bias found in real estate sales, taxi pickups and other nonathletic areas.
“In sports, we can capture human behavior that is hard to quantify in other areas of society,” said J. C. Bradbury, an economist at Kennesaw State University outside Atlanta. “We can then ask questions like: Why is it there? Can we fix it?”
1% is too great for randomness? 1%?
You’ve got to be kidding me. That’s probably the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever seen written. One percent. One. That’s inexplicable. Alan Schwartz should be embarassed.
There’s no doubt anymore that the Times will publish anything –any thing at all– as long as it’s controversial. Unbelievable.
Here’s the text of the email I just sent to Shwarz, I’ll publish anything he sends me in response:
Dear Mr. Schwarz,
I just read your piece about racial bias in baseball umpiring, and I was wondering; did you come up with the idea that there was a racial bias in the study, or did your editor insist that you write the story that way?
I’m asking because I think that that is probably the EXACT opposite conclusion I came to, and more than likely, any other rational, reasonable person would.
A difference of 1% in any statistical analysis is the same as nothing, and you are too smart not to know it. To suggest otherwise is beyond absurd, it is dishonest, and it is manipulative.
You and your newspaper owe your readers an explanation as to why you decide to write an article with such an obvious and heavy-handed bias designed to do one thing, and one thing only; create controversy where none exists.
Sincerely,
John J Perricone
Only Baseball Matters
If you want to add your two cents, here’s his email page.
David Pinto links to Dan Agonistes, who also seems to think the conclusion of bias is completely absurd.
Real Estate Guide…
I couldn’t understand some parts of this article, but it sounds interesting…
High School Online…
I couldn’t understand some parts of this article, but it sounds interesting…
Reactionary rhetoric aside (what is this, btw, the WSJ Op Ed?) would someone please explain to me why 1% can’t be statistically significant?
Um, well, let’s see….
Think about the difference between batting .300, or .310. Over the course of a season, that’s 6 hits. 180 hits in 600 at-bats is a .300 hitter, 186 hits in the same 600 at-bats is a .310 hitter. That’s one extra hit every 27 games. That’s going 33 for 108, or 34 for 108 each month. It’s nothing, and the larger the sample size, the more nothing it is.
Analyzing 2000 pitchers, over the course of multiple seasons, and finding that there is a difference of about 1% in the number of strike calls white pitchers get vs. black pitchers is essentially unmeasurable, non-repeatable, and almost certainly not meaningful.
In statistics, significant differences start at around 10%, and even that (55-45) is hardly considered definitive. In the world of poker, for instance, a 55-45 edge in probability is considered a coin flip. 1%, or 50.5% vs. 49.5%, is –obviously– even more so. It is, as far as predictability goes, virtually random.
For a writer, or a scientist, for that matter, to conclude that a 1% difference in ANY study of anything is pure, unadulterated bullshit. They would only do that if they had an agenda, a pre-conception, or were idiots. No one in the world would put their reputation behind such a conclusion, they would be working at a 7-11 if they did.
Another way of looking at it is this: To fail a drug test for using testosterone, your levels of testosterone need to be 3 times what is considered natural. That’s a difference of 300%. Get it?
there are so many variables in how each ump calls balls and strikes, that to even attempt a study is laffable
I believe Pinch Sulzberger’s fishwrap has surpassed the NY Post for promoting the shear lunacy of its opinion writers. Like most of their bird-cage liner brethren, the old gray lady has reduced itself to simple-minded 60s style thought, where everything is a political conspiracy driven by evil white men. Balls and Strikes as a manifestation of racism? When even their own research actually disproves it? Only fucking assholes write and publish shit like that. Even PITCHf/x doesn’t throw out “bad tracks” from the QuesTec study which could be as high as 5%. The “bias factor” does not exist. It is zero. If anything, it proves the opposite. Which everybody knows anyway.
Schwartz and the Times are Fucking Assholes. Normally one could chalk off Schwartz’s drivel to stupidy. But the guy has a degree in math from the University of Pennsylvania. Just another little boy of privilege spreading his guilt around like sack cloth and ashes, or trying to ingratiate himself with his bosses and the Upper Eastside cocktail and brie crowd. If little pukes like Schwartz and Sulzberger feel the need to berate us with phony opinions meant to manifest some kind of moral superiority over the rest of us, than they deserve to be called fucking assholes. I’m sick of fuckers like this who seek to make everything subservient to their own brand of political correctness. As long as it doesn’t interfere with their lifestyle that is. Fucking whiny douche bags like Schwartz spend their entire phony worklives creating issues that do not exist, fanning flames on dying embers, or beating on dead horses with wet noodles. They are poseurs and pseudo-intellectuals.
And people pass judgment on athletes based upon what jerk-offs like Schwartz write? And Lupica, and Rosenthal, and Neyer, and ad naueseum. What pieces of shit Schwartz and The Times have become.
Not to mention one HUGE variable… the race of the batter!
It doesn’t matter. Protestations to the contrary, to these fakes, there are only two ethnicities worth noting. White-Racist and everybody else.
And most people are under the mistaken impression that the KKK were the only ones who thought in those terms. Think again. Pathetic.
I saw that and too was outraged and frankly stunned by what I was reading. His non-evidence (1%) is right there in plain view. And then he uses J.C. Bradbury on a quote about numbers and statistics…wonder if J.C. knows?