Racial Discrimination in Baseball

1
Racial Discrimination in Baseball

• C.J. Norman
• ECO 4810. Senior Seminar
• Department of Economics
• Appalachian State University
• March 21, 2007

2
Is There Still Discrimination?

• A lot has changed since 1947 when Jackie Robinson
  broke the color barrier in Major League Baseball
• But is there still discrimination in terms of
  salary?

3
Literature

• Marburger, Daniel (1996)
• Palmer and King (2006)
• Reid, Clifford (1983)

4
Theory
Wage
S
Df (MPL)
L
5
Data

• 2006 Statistics only
• Used only outfielders that qualified for post
  season awards (minimum of 450 at bats)
• 55 players were used
• OPS was the strongest indicator of salary

6
Empirical Model

• Salary f (MPL, W)

7
Dependent Variable

• Salary
• Average salary 5,164,971
• Minimum 327,000
• Maximum 27,000,000

8
Independent Variables

• Race
• OPS
• Runs
• Batting Average
• Homeruns
• RBIs

• Stolen bases
• Fielding Percentage
• Assists
• On Base Percentage
• Slugging Percentage

9
Results

• Race turned out to be significant (t -2.522)
• It turns out that OPS is the only key variable
  (t2.530)
• OPS is a strong statistic
• According to the results, If a white and
  non-white player had the same OPS, the non-white
  player would make 3,296,168 more in that season

10
Summary

• People only pay for OPS
• Whites were discriminated against

11
Future Research

• Find a way to control rookies vs. veterans
• Magglio Ordonez vs. Nick Swisher
• Use more than 1 year of statistics