Study Shows Subtle Umpire Racial Bias

A recent study found that in 1% of calls made by home plate umpires between 2004 and 2006 were affected by race. The study, reported by MSNBC suggests that umpires were more likely to call strikes when the pitcher was of their race and balls when the pitcher is of another race. 71% of major league pitchers and 87% of umpires are white. According to the original article, Asian pitchers are particularly affected by this bias as there are no Asian umpires.

What that 1% of calls means is that there will be about 2 such bias-influenced calls during the course of any one game.

Interestingly enough, one of the several factors that seemed to mitigate the effects noted in the study was use of the QuesTec "Umpire Information System," (UIS) in use in baseball since 2003.

The UIS is a system developed by QuesTec that uses a series of cameras and a computer network to record the location of pitches during the course of a game, and presumably increasing umpire accuracy. UIS is used in 11 of the 30 major league parks.

The World Umpires Association (WUA) was authorized by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) as the exclusive bargaining agent of Major League Umpires in 2000 and it was they who challenged the use of UIS as an unfair labor practice in 2003. The issue at hand was the system's accuracy and consistency; it was the intention of MLB to use the system in the evaluation of umpires and if it weren't consistent and accurate, it couldn't be a fair evaluation tool.

According to one site, the UIS can be accurate to within a half inch, although particularly active batters who adjust their stance (and thereby altering the strike zone) during a pitch make it difficult for the system achieve this accuracy. Additionally, because ballparks all have their individual peculiarities, camera angles cannot be perfectly consistent from park to park.

Regardless of whether or not the UIS has accuracy problems - the issue between the WUA and MLB was resolved in collective bargaining negotiations in 2005 - it does have the effect of focusing the umpires attention on making the correct call. So as an unintended consequence of implementing the system, it would seem umpires respond to the anxiety of electronic evaluation by concentrating further on practicing their craft.

It is worth noting that there has been no formal complaints regarding racially influenced calls. The fact it occurs on average once for every 100 pitches speaks to the subtlety of the effect: to find this effect, over 2.1 Million pitches were analyzed.

REFERENCES

"Study suggests umps make calls based on race," August 13, 2007 MSNBC.com, URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20252500/

"Are Baseball Umpires Racist?" Time Magazine, URL: http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1652338,00.html

Wikipedia "QuesTec", URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QuesTec

World Umpires Association website, URL: http://www.worldumpires.com/index.php?option

Umpires File Another Grievance, New York Times, URL: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E0CEFD7123FF935A35750C0A9659C8B63&n=Top/Reference/Times%20Topics/Subjects/U/Umpires

The New Atlantis: A Journal of Technology and Society "Notes & Briefs," Summer 2003, URL: http://www.thenewatlantis.com/archive/2/soa/nb.htm