WSJ study deems White Sox announcers most biased by a wide margin
In what will come as a shock to absolutely no one, a study by the Wall Street Journal determined that Chicago White Sox broadcasters Hawk Harrelson and Steve Stone were the most biased in the league... by more than four times the next most homerific broadcast team (Indians announcers Matt Underwood and Rick Manning).
The WSJ study looked at a home victory for each MLB team and counted each instance of homerism by the broadcasters, including first person pronouns referring to the home team, nicknames that aren't widely used, and blatant cheering. Harrelson and Stone had 104 instances of homerism in the chosen game, a 2-1 win over the Rangers in July. The most impressive aspect of that statistic?
That number was more than the next seven highest broadcast teams combined!
Aside from the White Sox topping the list, the rest of the top five teams were all small market teams: the Indians, Pirates, Astros, and Marlins. Meanwhile, on the other end of the spectrum, five teams featured no recorded instances of bias in the chosen game: the Yankees, Red Sox, Blue Jays, Mets, and Dodgers. Those are generally large markets and their broadcast teams are thought of highly. Vin Scully does not refer to the Dodgers as "we" during a broadcast and he's made a decent career out of announcing.
Now obviously, a one game sample doesn't give us any definitive conclusion. But, when you have such a massive gap from #1 to #2 like in the case of the White Sox and the rest of the competition, that's a clear sign who is undoubtedly the biggest homers in baseball. Then again, you could put a mannequin next to Hawk and the White Sox team would still top this list by a mile. You can argue about the placing of the teams from #2 to #30, but all shades of baseball homerism pale in comparision to Hawk Harrelson... but you already knew that.
[h/t: Wall Street Journal]
1 Like
Duh!!! They are White Sox announcers. They are supposed to root for their team. They are the best & most exciting announcers in any sport & are the most knowledgeable. Would you want your hometown announcers to root for the opposing team? This is the most stupid study I have ever seen!
@awfulannouncing @ @PennStateGuy :I love Hawk . He's pure joy to listen too .. Team announcers should be homers you tune in for excitement
@chrisfarley71 Disagree 100%. Homers are the worse announcers possible. And Hawk is the worse of the worse.
@PennStateGuy :Think because my 7 year old loves him I do .. But maybe by homers I just mean exciting like Merrill & Harry K
My friend Matt jokes that Hawk only attends 10% of the games and the other 90% is an engineer w/a sound board b/c he says the SAME EXACT THING every game. Yes, he is far and away the most biased.
A NY-based paper listing both NY teams amoung the least unbiased? Are we going to audit for bias in these findings? Maybe it's just "confirmation bias", but I know whenever I hear highlights from Yankee games that guy calling it comes across as the biggest homer there is.
@AndrewWelter You're probably referring to John Sterling, the radio guy. This is a study about TV crews. Michael Kay tends to play it fairly even (including using the "See ya!" for both teams' home runs).
Ma & Pa were dying to be on this list. RT @awfulannouncing Who's the most biased announce team in baseball? http://t.co/T8viI8et
@awfulannouncing Disappointed that only includes TV crews. Radio would be a whole new story.
@awfulannouncing: white Sox:@awfulannouncing: Who's the most biased announce team in baseball? You'll never guess... http://t.co/Wr8LVypO
@awfulannouncing I wouldn't call Houston a small market. Small audience considering how bad they suck, but largest city in TX
@Mattzz10 yeah they are. i think it's mostly cause of tim neverett after he always yells 'el torro' after alvarez hits a homerun
@awfulannouncing if they picked a game when the sox are getting killed the number of instances would be lower. Hawk goes silent
@awfulannouncing "Mercy" "YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS" and "Dadgumit....." Hawk is entertaining when the Sox are not playing your team
