One of Yahoo's top stories circulating right now is about a group of researchers at the University of Texas, Austin who have studied every called pitch in the Majors between 2004 and 2006, and have found that umpires are racists. I kid you not. Here's the story.

Major League Baseball umpires are more likely to call strikes for pitchers of the same race or ethnicity, a new study finds.

Researchers at the University of Texas at Austin analyzed every pitch from the 2004 through 2006 major league seasons to explore whether racial discrimination factored into umpires’ decisions to call a pitch a strike or a ball.

Just as discrimination in the labor market can affect disparities in wages, promotion and performance evaluation, the researchers said, possible discrimination by umpires could affect the outcome of games and careers.

During a typical baseball game, umpires call about 75 pitches for each team (they call about 400,000 pitches over the whole season—this figure excludes foul balls), so an umpire’s evaluation heavily influences pitcher productivity and performance.

“Umpires judge the performance of players every game, deciding whether pitches are strikes or balls,” said study leader Daniel Hamermesh, who will present his findings next month at his campus and later at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. “Discrimination affects the outcome of a game and the labor market, determining the pitcher’s market value and compensation.”

The researchers found if a pitcher is of the same race or ethnicity as the home plate umpire, more strikes are called and his team’s chance of winning is improved.

The power to evaluate players’ performances disproportionately belonged chiefly to white umpires, while negative calls particularly impacted minority pitchers, Hamermesh said.

But, this behavior diminishes when the umpire's calls are more closely scrutinized—for example at ballparks with electronic monitoring systems, in full count situation where there are 3 balls or 2 strikes, or at well-attended games.

Hamermesh said the study is drawing more comments, so far, from his colleagues than any of his previous work. "I did not know how many economists are hung up on baseball," he told LiveScience.

No, most likely, colleagues are commenting more on this because of the increased level of garbage this particular report is. Is there racism in baseball? I'm sure there is, to some degree. There's racism in all walks of life in America, just as there is in every society, to varying degrees, around the globe. But can you statistically prove that umpires are racist? I don't think so.

Umpires in the Major Leagues are there because they've shown at every stop along the way through the minor leagues that they were among the best umpires in the level they were working. By the time an umpire gets to the majors, if there was a problem with calls made for racial reasons, it would have been complained about during their stint in the minors. It's not like the Supreme Court where a nominee can pretend to be a judge of one particular ideology and migrate to the other side once they're confirmed. It's a peer reviewed process, and making it to the Bigs as an umpire is much harder than making it as a player. Each of the 30 teams have 25 players on their roster, or 750 playing for most of the season. There's 17 four-man umpire crews in the Majors. Do the math. The road is much higher. You have to be the best to make it.

This "study" only charts the apparent increased likelihood of strikes being called if the pitcher and the home plate umpire are of the same race or ethnicity. The problem with this premise is that there's only two variables being discussed, according to this story, that being the race or ethnicity of the pitcher and the batter. Baseball is a game that is completely full of diversity and complexity. There is diversity on the four-man umpire crews, each making calls that affect the outcome of the game at all four bases. There is diversity among all 30 teams, each one, like any of us, being able to have good days and bad days, all effecting the outcome of a game. There is diversity in the fan base in all 30 baseball markets. It's not like we're talking about the racism that showed its ugly head when Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier 60 years ago. There are eight other positions out there besides the pitcher, and then you have nine different hitters stepping into the box from every region on Earth.

If a white umpire has a white pitcher out on the mound, will he get preferential treatment with a black batter, and then immediately get non-biased calls when the next batter in the lineup, a white, digs in at the plate? In this story, the study doesn't factor in any of the other variables that change with the ethnicity of each batter or pitcher.

Is the racist umpire sophisticated enough in his racism to realize that pinching a pitcher's strike zone that is of a different ethnicity may result in the victory by a team being managed by someone of a third ethnicity different than the umpire?

What about the umpire's racism on the other three days they're on the bases and not behind the plate? If you're a white umpire, is a black base runner stealing second more likely to be thrown out on a close play because they're black? If there's a bang-bang play at first, does the tie go to the white guy if it's a Caucasian umpire? This is truly silly. But the part that throws the whole stupid study out the window is this paragraph:

But, this behavior diminishes when the umpire's calls are more closely scrutinized—for example at ballparks with electronic monitoring systems, in full count situation where there are 3 balls or 2 strikes, or at well-attended games.

The theorum they were trying to prove is umpires call strikes based on racial preference, and they set out to chart two seasons worth of calls to "prove" their theorum. Except the data obviously didn't back up their claim, because they had to throw out all full count pitches, well attended games, which who knows what each umpire's idea of a well-attended game is, or where there is electronic monitoring systems. So in other words, any of the games that matter, or any part of a game that matters, there's no racism. It only happens when no one is paying any attention. Then the racism can clearly be shown...unless the game falls on a Sunday, usually the last of a weekend series for all the umpire crews, which means they've got to get the game over with quick so they can get to the airport to the next city. In that case, they're all strikes to make the game go quicker, so those can't count either. But then there are those Wednesday businessman special day games, where it's so blinking hot out. Those games are all strikes, too. So we can't count those in our racism study. And then there are the rain games, where the umpire crew doesn't want to have to redo the game as part of a doubleheader later, so they need to get five innings in before the Heavens open up. Those games certainly can't be applied towards the racism study. See what I mean? When you cherrypick what games or situations will or won't count in order to make your theory pan out, you've got a busted study.

More likely than rampant racism on the part of only home plate umpires is the likelihood that like all facets of baseball, it is a human game, full of human emotion, and played and managed and umpired by people with human memories. If pitchers by and large have a reputation of being around the plate, they get strikes called more often. Rookies often don't get calls on the edges until they prove themselves. That kind of stuff has been going on since the game began. If a pitcher is a hothead, and there are lots of them out there, and they show up one particular umpire, it very well may be that that umpire might get even with that pitcher some other time, some other day, and not give him as wide a zone as he might otherwise give. But it's not because of ethnicity.

Umpires have good days and bad days, just like the rest of us. One day behind the plate, the outside corner might look pretty good. Other days, maybe for no other reason than their eggs were undercooked at the Denny's that morning, they have a strike zone the size of a postage stamp. That's baseball. The human element is what makes it maddening a lot of the time, but it also is what makes it the great sport that it is. It's not perfect. It was never designed to be.

If we're at the place in this country where we have to look for statistical date to try and find racism in pitch calling behind the plate, I'd say we've actually come pretty far in this country regarding race. In other parts of the world, if you are of a different race, or of a different religion, you are killed. Let's try and keep some perspective.