Gone fishin’

Away for a little R&R. Gone north, to Alaska, where they’ve been playing The Midnight Sun Classic for more than 100 years. See you after Labor Day.

Report: Do Umpires Discriminate?

Charges of “ism” — racism, sexism, agism, etc. — always make for hot topics and the media loves to jump on any information, sometimes a bit too quickly, or without fully understanding the material/source/etc.

Case in point: In the Aug. 13 edition of Time magazine, Katie Rooney asks the button-pushing question “Are Baseball Umpires Racist?” She bases her article on “Strike Three: Umpires’ Demand for Discrimation,” a report by Christopher A. Parsons, Johan Sulaeman, Michael C. Yates, and Daniel S. Hamermesh from the University of Texas at Austin.

Known as the Hamermesh Report, it claims that home plate umpires, who can control the game through their calls of balls and strikes, show favoritism to pitchers of their own race, that is white umps favor white pitchers, African-Americans umps favor African-American pitchers, and Hispanic umps favor Hispanic pitchers (there are no Asian umpires).

From the article:

It doesn’t happen all the time — in about 1% of pitches thrown — but that’s still one pitch per game, and it could be the one that makes the difference. “One pitch called the other way affects things a lot,” says Hamermesh. “Baseball is a very closely played game.” What’s more, says Hamermesh, a slight umpire bias affects more than just the score; it also has an indirect effect on a team’s psyche. Baseball is a game of strategy. If a pitcher knows he’s more likely to get questionable pitches called as strikes, he’ll start picking off at the corners. But if he knows he’s at a disadvantage, he might feel forced to throw more directly over the plate, possibly giving up hits.

I’m no mathematician, but glancing through the report, it seems to me one could interpret several comments that might lead the read to believe that the report is inconclusive. As Phil Birnbaum, a member of SABR and operator of the Sabremetric Research blog notes, when comparing black/white UPM’s (Umpire/player matchups, as Hamermesh calls them):

Over more than 7,000 ballgames over three seasons, the two groups of umpires are five pitches away (original emphasis) from showing absolutely no racial bias. Obviously, that’s not statistically significant.

An FAQ that accompanies the Hamermesh report states, “We cannot (emphasis original) distinguish between conscious and unconscious bias by umpires.”

Now, granted, the saying goes there are lies, damn lies, and statistics, so I’m sure if people look hard enough, they can interpret any information to back up their argument or theory. But you have to be very careful when you try to get into the heads of a group of people to lump their actions together by means of psychological or sociological reasoning.
For reactions to the Time’s piece from Fannation.com, see here.

 

Writer Profile: Murray Chass, NY Times

Henry Chadwick, a mid-19thcentury newspaperman, was credited with transforming baseball from a local event into the national pastime through his stories.

Will history say the same about Murray Chass, veteran New York Times sports columnist, and the Israel Baseball League?

Chass’ May 13, 2006, column, “Israel Dreams Big, As in Big League,” appeared more than a year before the first official IBL pitch was tossed this summer.

In a piece in the July 11 edition of the Brooklyn Jewish Press, Marty Appel, a former public relations director for the New York Yankees who now serves in that capacity for the IBL, gave Chass major kudos for publicizing that dream.

“Seemingly every Jew in America immediately e-mailed [Chass’ article] to everyone he or she had ever met,” wrote Appel. “Within 48 hours, there were few who hadn’t seen the column or fallen in love with the idea.”

“I’m pleased with that,” Chass told NJ Jewish News in a telephone interview. “I like the idea of helping to get that going. I hope it succeeds.”

He might have ulterior motives since one of his sons lives in Israel, where Chass visits about once a year. He did say, however, that there was a downside to pro baseball in the Holy Land: “I think the league is intruding on some of the fields my son plays on.”

In addition to the IBL, Chass has also written about a baseball card set devoted to Jewish Major

Leaguers and a clinic held in Israel by former players (he did not, however, write the Times piece about Shawn Green when the outfielder was acquired by the Mets last August).

“I’m trying to envision readers reading about it, and I don’t want to alienate anybody by having them say, ‘Jeez, he’s writing another Jewish thing again….’ I treat it as just another [story]; I don’t want to write about the same player time after time….”

The 68-year-old Chass said he is concerned about the criteria for classification of a Jewish player; some, he said, “are not legitimately Jewish if you believe only in matrilineal descent or practice. I don’t know that I’ve ever asked a player about his background and his practices, his beliefs. I just think that would be an intrusion. I wouldn’t ask a non-Jew about his beliefs, so I don’t think I should ask a Jew.”

“Jews make a very big thing about Jewish baseball players, and I can understand that because there are so few [of them]. If it makes Jews proud, that’s fine,” he said.

“Sports is not one of those things that we’re supposed to have much talent for, so when somebody does come, I guess we have reason to be proud.”

Chass’ membership card in the Baseball Writers Association of America is marked “number eight,” meaning only seven writers have been on the beat longer. He joined the Times in 1969 and in 1984 created the “Baseball Notes” column, which has become a staple of the Sunday sports section. He received the Spink Award for meritorious contributions to baseball writing from the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2003, one of only six Times baseball writers to be so honored. The same year, Chass — a Pittsburgh-born lifetime associate member of Hadassah — was also inducted into the Western Pennsylvania Jewish Sports Hall of Fame in 2003.

He considers himself “an old-fashioned guy,” who has been criticized for his disdain of the inundation of new statistics that have become en vogue in recent years. Although he does find certain Web sites useful in his research, “I try not to bury myself in the Internet,” he said. “I think that can become an illness of just constantly using it…. I’m sure there are…sites that other baseball writers use that I don’t, but they’re younger and more into this stuff. I’d be happy to still be using a typewriter.”

A version of this article appeared in the Aug. 9, 2007 issue of New Jersey Jewish News.

Chass’ article on the IBL

Israel Dreams Big, As in Big League

Oct. 13, 2006

PEOPLE go to Israel for different reasons. Some go to see historic sites, some go for religious reasons, some go to visit their children and grandchildren. Larry Baras goes to Israel to build a professional baseball league.

Baras, founder and operator of a specialty baking company in Boston, is going to Israel next Thursday for the next step in getting his league ready for what he plans to be its debut next year.

”Hopefully I’m going to select some of the venues,” he said in a telephone interview. ”As soon as I get some of the venues in place, we’ll go after sponsorships and start selling tickets.”

The man has an ambitious plan, considering that baseball and Israel usually are not mentioned in the same sentence. But interest in the sport has been growing, and the country has an amateur baseball league and three softball leagues as well as youth leagues.

Given that Israel has no baseball stadiums, Baras’s project, especially its estimated time of arrival, may be unrealistic, but a former major league general manager likes the idea so much that he has joined as director of player development.

”I met with Larry and was really impressed with his enthusiasm,” Dan Duquette, former general manager of the Boston Red Sox, said yesterday. ”The program and the objectives of the league really excited me.”

Commissioner Bud Selig is also enthusiastic about the idea. ”I am 100 percent not only supportive,” he said, ”but I have been trying to figure out ways to make it happen. It’s a subject very near and dear to my heart.”

Duquette, who has created a youth sports academy in the Berkshires in Massachusetts, recalled that when he worked for the Montreal Expos, the owner, Charles Bronfman, talked about ”bringing baseball to Israel.”

By establishing the league, Baras has another goal: getting Israel into the next World Baseball Classic in 2009.

”We would recruit some Jewish-American major leaguers and minor leaguers,” Baras said. He noted that Mike Piazza played for Italy in this year’s inaugural classic and said, ”They did it with a bit of a stretch. We don’t have that stretch. We have the law of return.”

Under that concept, any Jew is eligible to become a citizen of Israel. That means an Israeli team could include Kevin Youkilis, Gabe Kapler and Adam Stern of Boston, David Newhan of Baltimore, Shawn Green of Arizona, Brad Ausmus of Houston, Mike Lieberthal of Philadelphia, Jason Marquis of St. Louis, Scott Schoeneweis of Toronto, John Grabow of Pittsburgh and Scott Feldman of Texas.

But first the Israel Baseball League has to come into existence. To achieve that goal, Baras has recruited some impressive non-playing talent.

Besides Duquette, he has Daniel Kurtzer, former United States ambassador to Israel, who is set to be the league’s commissioner. As advisers, he has Andrew Zimbalist, the Smith College economist, and Marvin Goldklang, a limited partner in the Yankees and owner of five minor league teams.

”It’s a project that is so intriguing to me I have to be involved,” Goldklang said. ”Whether we can make it happen for 2007 remains to be seen.”

In his visit next week, Baras will study soccer stadiums in Israel with the thought of converting them for baseball use for what he expects to be a season of about 48 games with six teams, 20 players to a team.

”From what I have been told,” Baras said, ”there are some soccer stadiums that seat between 3,000 and 5,000, which is what we’re looking for. We’re not going to start with Jerusalem and Tel Aviv because they don’t have the facilities we’re looking for.”

Rather, he said, he will look at towns like Bet Shemesh, which is between those two major cities.

”A lot of Americans live there,” Baras said. ”They have 200-plus kids playing baseball there, and they have a soccer stadium. It’s near the main highway, and the train from Jerusalem stops near the stadium, I am told.”

Israel may be the land of milk and honey, but it’s not a land of baseball players. Where will Baras find them? He plans to model the league on the Italian league, where, he said, 60 percent of the players are from the United States.

Baras, 54, said he would advertise for players in baseball publications and seek minor league players, former players and undrafted college players. Israel has a thriving basketball league populated by many foreign players.

The long-range plan, though, is to grow their own players. Duquette’s goal, Baras said, ”is to develop players so that by the start of Year 6 at least a quarter of the players will be native Israelis.”

Duquette said they will develop players at an academy they will build in Israel. Their timing is good. Israel has just established a sports ministry, and its head has said there will be a new emphasis on sports in the country, especially on sports other than soccer and basketball.

In trying to attract an audience, the Israeli league will also follow the model of the Italian league. There, Baras said, ”a lot of the entertainment value transcends the game itself” with pre- and post-game and between-innings entertainment.

”It will be a family-oriented fun venue,” he said. ”Israeli spectator sports have a male-dominated audience. You seldom see women and children.”

Baras, an orthodox Jew, said he came up with the idea for the league last summer.

”My first thought was what can I do to help Israel,” he related. ”I had reached the stage of my life where I wanted to do something. Being passionate about both Israel and baseball and having familiarity with minor league baseball, specifically unaffiliated baseball, I said, ‘Why can’t we do that over there?’

”Not only was I met with some skepticism, but I was skeptical,” he added. ”But as time went on, I realized it could be done.”

Now he just has to do it.

 

Bits and Pieces

From the Charleston Post and Courier, a review of HOME RUN: The Definitive History of Baseball’s Ultimate Weapon, by David Vincent (Potomac Books).

David Vincent hits it out of the park with “Home Run.” But he must be charged with an error.

The error being:

only two pages of the book deal with the steroid issue and its possible effect on home-run production.

So does every baseball book now have to come with a “warning?” Must performance enhancing drugs be part of the sports lexicon in the future for the document to be valid?

***

From The Oklahoman and Channel 9 Web site, this review of The 100 Greatest Minor League Baseball Teams of the 20th Century, by Bill Weiss and Marshall Wright (Outskirts Press), which the writer calls, “A must-have for any good baseball library.”

***

The Chicago Sports Review features a lengthy piece on Burying the Black Sox: How Baseball’s Cover-Up of the 1919 World Series Fix Almost Succeeded, by Gene Carney (Potomac Books).

According to writer Steven Appelhans:

This is definitely not a book for the average baseball fan, or even more passionate fans who have little interest in baseball’s history. Those who would get the most out of it are people highly interested in the past of either the White Sox or baseball in general.

Magazine: Interview with Astros’ owner Drayton McLane

The Aug. 13-19 issue of Sports Business Journal carried this interview with Drayton McLane, chairman and CEO of the Houston Astros,

One of the questions asked and asnwered:

SBJ: The game’s key business metrics, such as attendance, TV ratings and overall revenue, are all up this season, as we expected, but is there a ceiling we’re approaching?

McLane: I think there’s still a lot of greenfield. You see sports cycle, and this is definitely an up cycle time for Major League Baseball, has been for several years. We’ve been building into this. Gate attendance is at an all-time high for a great many teams, and they’re predicting an increase again this year when everybody thought last year was the high-water mark, so the interest is really, really strong.

 

 

Slugger, The Magazine

Many years ago, Louisville Slugger used to put out an annual yearbook that was available primarily as a premium through sport good stores. I found this interesting source at Scribd.com.