How Biased Is Your Announcer?

[westofyou]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...376246198.html

Prompted by Ken Harrelson's unabashed homerism, the Journal decided to watch one nine-inning game played by every major-league team to evaluate its local broadcasters for bias. To keep things simple, we only evaluated home games that the home teams won.

By the rules of our study, 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!")

It didn't take long for the study to confirm what many baseball observers have long expected. During the White Sox game—a 2-1 win against the Texas Rangers—Harrelson and Stone (but mostly Harrelson) made a whopping 104 biased statements.