Just when you think the accusations of racism can't get any more absurd, this ridiculous headline pops up on Yahoo! Sports: "MLB umpires show discrimination against non-white players, according to new study."

That's right.  You read it correctly.  Major-league umpires are racist, and it's based on allegedly erroneous ball and strike calls and which player benefits from the errant call.

"A new study suggests MLB umpires discriminate against non-white players, according to Hank Snowdon, a student at Claremont McKenna," wrote Chris Cwik from Yahoo! Sports.  "The study used balls and strikes data from the past 13 seasons to determine the rate of missed calls against certain players," Cwik continued.  "Snowdon determined which should-be strikes were called balls, which balls were erroneously called strikes and then looked at the race of the umpire, batter and pitcher.  What Snowdon found was that umpires made more advantageous calls when their   race was the same as the person receiving the advantage."

The difference of the alleged racist calls amounted to a grand total of 0.3 percent, something so minuscule that even a professional race-baiter like Al Sharpton likely wouldn't have noticed.  Not until a woke college student at Claremont McKenna made an issue out of it, that is. 

To give Mr. Snowdon the benefit of the doubt, he's a white youngster from a brainwashed generation that's been indoctrinated for years to see white racism around every corner and under every rock, as well as within his own being.  He no doubt despises himself and sees conducting idiotic "studies" like this as a type of racial penance.  So I forgive your stupidity, Mr. Snowdon, as you're an obvious victim of your racist environment.

That said, as a former ballplayer — and I'm not talking about Little League (though that's where I started) — I have some major problems with Mr. Snowdon's methodology.  In the first place, how in the world can a person conduct a viable study on missed ball and strike calls over thirteen seasons of Major League Baseball?  Literally millions of pitches are thrown over that many seasons, so claiming to make a reasonable study about questionable calls is ludicrous. 

Second, as Cwik noted, Mr. Snowdon claims to have made the calls himself.  Pretty hard to do, especially if you understand anything about baseball and the strike zone.  Fans will gripe when they're watching TV and they see a catcher receiving the ball inches outside or inside the plate, and the ump calls it a strike.  In fact, where the ball is caught is irrelevant; the key is where the ball crosses the plate.  That's very difficult, if not impossible, to see on video footage.  What appears to be a ball on camera can actually be a strike and vice versa.  Mr. Snowdon apparently doesn't know that.  Therefore, his so-called study is moot.

In conclusion, Mr. Snowdon's analysis on racist umpires is highly questionable...and that's putting it mildly.  He probably doesn't have a future in statistical analysis, but The New York Times doubtless would love to hire him as a race-baiting journalist.  Congratulations, Mr. Hank Snowdon.  Your future as a propagandist is almost guaranteed!

Image via Max Pixel.

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