Bias in El Beisbol

The Connection Between Race and Called Strikes and Balls 
 Jeff Hamrick & John Rasp
 Journal of Sports Economics, forthcoming

Abstract: We investigate potential racial bias by Major League Baseball umpires. We do so in the context of the subjective decision as to whether a pitch is called a strike or a ball, using data from the 1989-2010 seasons. We find limited, and sometimes contradictory, evidence that umpires unduly favor or unjustly discriminate against players based on their race. Potential mitigating variables such as attendance, terminal pitch, the absolute score differential, and the presence of monitoring systems do not consistently interact with umpire/pitcher and umpire/hitter racial combinations. Most evidence that would first appear to support racially connected behaviors by umpires appears to vanish in three-way interaction models. Overall, our findings fall well short of convincing evidence for racial bias.

Racism?

Look, there are plenty of instances of real racism, without going this route:

The underlying question in the reaction to these incidents—and several similar other ones this year involving Latino players, including Puig—seemed to be why these players couldn't simply behave like they are supposed to? Why couldn't these guys play the game the "right way"? 

The framing of the incidents in this manner is ignorant and prejudicial. What exactly is the "right way" to play the game? Who decides what the "right way" is? And why can't bat flips and celebrations be considered the "right way"?

In the Dodgers-Cards series, Yasiel Puig got attention for being a jerk, and standing around home plate celebrating a ball that didn't even go out.  And he's a rookie.  Rookies don't act that way.  It's not about race, it's about status.  You don't act like you are all that until you are all that.  And THEN you don't act that way, because it's not baseball.

A case in point:  David Ortiz (that's Dav-EED Or-TEES, for you keeping score of Latinos).  On Wednesday night, he hit a single, and because his bat touched the Cards' catcher on the follow-through David looked back ON HIS WAY TO FIRST BASE and pointed, saying, "Sorry, man."  That's class.

And then Ortiz hit a home run on Thursday night.  In a scoreless game.  With his team behind.  In the WORLD SERIES. And he dropped his bat, and ran to first.  No celebration, no "I'm a badass" stuff.  Just did his job.  Watch the video.  Now, you can see that Ortiz wasn't sure it would go out, but it did go out.  Puig was sure it would go out, and IT DIDN'T.

If one of the greatest hitters, regular and post-season, in baseball history can act that way, surely the youngsters can, too.  This is not a racial matter.  It's a question of keeping your mouth shut and earning respect.  David Ortiz is a paragon of how the game should be played.  So is Carlos Beltran. The problem is youth.  The problem is Bryce Harper and Yasiel Puig.  Not Carlos and David.

Cards Trivia!

 What to the 2006, 2011 and 2013 title runs all have in common?

The Cardinals switched closers in September!  

• Jason Isringhausen went down with a hip injury in September of 2006 and the closer role went to Adam Wainwright
• Jason Motte took over the closer role from Fernando Salas in September of 2011 as Salas lost effectiveness
• Trevor Rosenthal took over the closer role for Mujica in 2013 as Mujica lost effectiveness (at least partly because he was hurt)

Switching closers is not usually a good thing. So presumably this is just luck. But it looked good last night!

Cardinals

Some of you may be wondering if the Cards will collapse, now that they got a butt-whuppin' in game 1 last night.  You might want to watch this (if you can):  Cards skipper Mike Matheny takes a fastball to the face, and pretty much just says, "That's all you've got?"

Sure, he left the game, but he was spitting out teeth.  Matheny played ten innings the NEXT DAY.

Let's see what the next day brings for the Cards.  Nod to the Dutch Boy, who knows from tough (he's from Ocoee, ya know.)

Senor Alcantara no se rie

Pujols vs. Clark smackdown.

The suit.

The response (described).  The response. 

NASCAR Post-Race Interview

I think more baseball players should do post-game interviews in the persona of other sports stars.  But clearly NASCAR is the best choice...

Nod to SL

Crime Pays: example # 10305

People, I give you the Ryan Braun (can his nickname really be the Hebrew Hammer? really?) guide to making it filthy rich in falling baseball.

1. Juice like a mother

2. Sign a lucrative contract extension based on your juiced performance

3. Serve your time right away when finally nailed so as to minimize your salary loss

4. Enjoy your $21 million a year for 5 years thereafter

All the other stuff, "betting his life" he never juiced, going after the poor sample collector, that was just for grins. Don't let it distract you from the master plan, which has worked to a T.

As I was man'splainin' this to Mrs. Angus, she asked me how in the world the Brew Crew would be obligated to make good on the extension when the HH was caught juicing.

Good question.

I guess that "caught juicing" is not part of the morals clause of MLB contracts.

But it should be.

Can we at least put Lil Ryan's 2011 MVP award in a closet somewhere with Reggie Bush's Heisman?

Inside Baseball

Interesting.  Pittsburgh pitcher gives up leadoff homer, then second homer, then a single.  So, two runs in, man on first, to lead off the game.  No outs.

Pitcher then throws ball WAY up and in, could have hit Craig in the head if he ducked down.  An extremely dangerous pitch.

Generally, umps warn both benches in this situation.  But of course that allows the pitcher who threw the "purpose pitch" to get away with it, and prevents the other team from retaliating.  So, that's probably a bad idea.

Other two courses of action for the ump:
1.  Do nothing.  Let baseball work it out, with all the problems that implies.  The tradition is that somebody takes one hard for the other team, and it's even.  When this does not happen, people notice. 
2.  Toss the pitcher.  No warning, just toss him  And since this is unusual, you will almost certainly toss the manager also, who will be obliged to protest to protect his pitcher and avoid losing face in the eyes of his team. 

The point being that #2 is a pretty big deal.  I favor #1, for a first offense.  The ump, Timmons, chose #2.  Here is the video.  And here is a video of what happened later.  'Cause here's the thing:  Cards pitcher Lance Lynn hit Marte TWICE.  And then later a THIRD Pirates batter was hit, on an up and in pitch.  Three Pirates hit, no Cardinal ejected; one Cardinal hit, three Pirates ejected. (Here is the box score, if you want to follow the whole thing...)

My view?  Return to the Samurai code.  In hockey, they fight, they get it over with.  If you take a cheap shot, you had better watch your ass.  I understand that people get hurt if a baseball hits them.  If you think someone is intentionally throwing at a guy's head, you have to toss him.

The counterargument:  Batters increasingly are taking matters into their own hands.  Rather than accepting the Samurai code, they charge the mound.  And premium pitchers get hurt.

So, I have to say that umpire Timmons probably played this correctly, all the way down the line.  Except he should have ejected (Cardinal) Boggs when he hit (Pirate) Sanchez.  That ball was up and in.  Both times Lynn hit Marte, Marte swung into it.  The ball was inside, but it was on the hands and no way was it intentional.  When Boggs hit Sanchez, that was the third Card HBP, and it was up and in.  If you are going to regulate, you have to be fair, and allow the Pirates to save face.  Otherwise they to fight or throw at guys to defend themselves.

As it stands, the Pirates are pissed.  I think they are wrong about being mad about the Sanchez ejection, and the Hurdle ejection, and the Marte HBPs, and the Bell ejection.  But the Pirates are right, at the very least, about the failure to eject Boggs.  If you are going to use regulation to prevent fights, you have to punish the behavior, not the intent.  Up and in is an ejection, and Boggs threw it up and in.  Umps can't read minds.

EYM and the Santiago Giants

The EYM is teaching down at UDD, in Santiago de Chile, or in Los Condes, actually.

He found a "gringo beisbol" team to play on, the Santiago Giants.

The EYM is the very dirty one, on the left.  Apparently they had fun, though there were tensions when they played the Venezuelan team.  Those Hugonos have little use for imperialist gringos.  And, yes, that is the foothills of the cordillera in the background.  Early summer down there, like late May here.  But those little hills still have snow.  Very, very pretty.

Torn from the headlines

People, you wonder why folks in Washington have trouble with getting the math right? Well the town's paper of record, the senescent WAPO, is not helping.

In the print edition this morning, Preston Williams' column on the Yankees - Os series reads in part, "Sabathia hurled a commanding four hit shutout for a 3-1 win at Yankee Stadium....."

This fabulous example of DC math is viewable in the online edition for now (2nd graf of story), but who knows, maybe someone will wake up and fix it.

Ezra?

El Beisbol

I apologize in advance for this post not being about monetary policy but....

Wow! My Tigers (fan since 1967) and Cardinals (fan since 1980) are both in the post-season again.

The dream of another Tigers - Cards series lives for at least one more day.

Could there be another trip to the WS with Mungowitz?

Be still, my heart.


PS: Congrats to Miggy for staying sober and winning the triple crown.

I bean you, he beans him, we'll call it baseball

Revenge without responsibility? Judgments about collective punishment in baseball

Fiery Cushman, A.J. Durwin & Chaz Lively
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, forthcoming

Abstract: Many cultures practice collective punishment; that is, they will punish one person for another's transgression, based solely on shared group membership. This practice is difficult to reconcile with the theories of moral responsibility that dominate in contemporary Western psychology, philosophy and law. Yet, we demonstrate a context in which many American participants do endorse collective punishment: retaliatory “beaning” in baseball. Notably, individuals who endorse this form of collective punishment tend not to hold the target of retaliation to be morally responsible. In other words, the psychological mechanisms underlying such “vicarious” forms of collective punishment appear to be distinct from the evaluation of moral responsibility. Consequently, the observation of collective punishment in non-Western cultures may not indicate the operation of fundamentally different conceptions of moral responsibility.

(Nod to Kevin Lewis)

Baseball Cards--Mr. Mint is Sad

Tommy the Tenured Brit writes, "I weep for the loss of my 1980s childhood. Still, it was quite commonsense to me at 12 that any baseball card produced after 1985 or so would not be very valuable long term..."

The story: Baseball's House of Cards

These are a few of my favorite things....

Angus and Mungowitz, together forever, in posterity!

At least, if you bought the video of game 4 of the World Series. Here it is, from the official video, admittedly only a few seconds, so I slowed it down.

If you missed it, here is the still shot:

A Sweet Tribute

I had missed this. A sweet tribute of the young Buck to his very famous father.

Jack and Joe Buck call their respective Game 6's from Kidd Video on Vimeo.

Also sad to see #5 in the thick of the celebration. Bon chance, #5.

Billy Beane, John Paulson & the January effect

My second Grantland column with LeBron is now up. This time we made the main masthead instead of being in The Triangle! Still no mention of Rex Chapman though.

Fish in a (pork) barrel

Wow. the newly christened Miami Marlins have signed Heath Bell (3 years, $27 million), Jose Reyes (6 years, $106 million) and have supposedly offered Albert Pujols a 10 year, $200 million deal.

But you say, the Marlins never drew any fans in their old park and had a tiny payroll. How are they doing it?

Well they got the City of Miami to put up around $500 million for building their new park (about 80% of the total cost).

In a way, you could say they are paying these contracts with house (or should I say taxpayer) money and have around $150 million or so still left.

Hey, I heard Manny Ramirez was un-retiring....


PS: apparently even the clueless Feds at the SEC who couldn't lay a glove on Bernie Madoff for almost 20 years, think there is something fishy (yes!!!!) about the Marlins deal with Miami and are investigating.

World Series Thoughts

A video I took before the game started, in Dallas. Back when Texas had a team in the world series. Before they lost to the Cardinals, I mean. My team. We won.

The trip back last Monday was a little tough. (I had to give, and grade, 180 midterms for two different classes. Just now getting caught up...) Fine to Atlanta. Upgraded to first class, on time. Had a scotch, finished reading BOOMERANG. Nice.

But Flight ATL to RDU delayed, after boarding, because of mechanical difficulties involving wing. No complaints, I want the wings to work. But we sat for 55 mins at gate. I was in middle seat in coach (let me say again: MIDDLE seat in COACH). Guy on my right weighed 450 pounds, at least. His giant ass was almost parted down the middle when he tried to sit down and the armrest was down. Of course he wanted to raise the armrest, which I resisted. If you give a giant fat guy Sudetenland, he always wants the rest of Czechoslovakia.

But the stewardess said we had to raise the armrest. They got him an extender for the seatbelt, a good 12 inches, but the seatbelt still wouldn't buckle. (Seriously, the man was big). They got him an 18 inch extender, and it buckled.

So did I: got to sit under this guy's left butt cheek for 55 mins at the gate, and then for an hour flight. Guy on my left let me scoot over onto his seat a little, but my own ass is none too small (though it does fit between the armrests, and inside a standard seatbelt, without any problem). Pretty miserable.

Carpe Diem: Carpenter Siezes the Day

Look at our F-ing Cardinals

Congrats to St. Louis and their Cardinals. 11th WS title (3rd in the Mungowitz-Angus era).

What a strong performance by Carpenter!