Or rather, “science.” The Wall Street Journal took a look at bias in baseball announcing, to see which announcing crews are the biggest “homers.” The rules were:

Anyone with a microphone who used a pronoun like “we,” “us” or “our” to describe the home team was given a citation. Obscure pet names for players were also flagged: The Detroit Tigers announcers, for instance, referred to backup catcher Gerald Laird as “G-Money.” Additional penalties were given for things like excessive moping after miscues or unrestrained glee after big moments. (A Miami Marlins broadcaster marked the end of a lengthy scoreless drought by screaming “Hallelujah!”).”

The study only looked at one game (a home win) for each crew, so it’s not exactly bulletproof, but Wheels and T-Mac tied for 7th with the Orioles, Nationals, Padres, and Twins crews for nine biased statements each. All of these teams (and in fact, every team in baseball) fell way behind the standard set by the ultimate homer, Chicago White Sox announcer Ken “Hawk” Harrelson, whose play-by-play broadcasts are … colorful to say the least (but hey, Larry Andersen would be pretty high up on that list if they counted the radio guys). Though for a hometown broadcast, over the span of one whole game, 9 seems like a pretty healthy number.

[Chart via WSJ]

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 26th, 2012 at 2:02 pm.