To answer this question we dispatched a group of ten people to combine to watch every single television broadcast of a Major League Baseball game for a week last season—95 games total, and nearly 200 separate broadcasts, since nearly every team fields its own broadcast for every game. We analyzed these games for the words announcers used to describe players, with the goal of finding out whether broadcasters spoke about white players and players of color differently.

Our analysis shows that while black players are not discriminated against, foreign-born players—of which the vast majority are Latino—find themselves at a disadvantage.

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"Last season, I led this team in ninth-inning doubles in the month of August!"

–Tom Selleck as Jack Elliot, in the 1992 movie Mr. Baseball

Virtually everything a baseball player can do on the field has a corresponding metric, no matter how completely meaningless (ninth-inning doubles in the month of August), misleading (pitcher wins), or downright silly (fielding percentage). Announcers, however, still find themselves commenting on things that are inherently immeasurable. These "intangibles" nonetheless comprise a significant portion of announcer language.

While baseball discussions often reference countable statistics such as home runs, batting average, and strikeouts, they also reference intangible characteristics that cannot be listed on the back of a baseball card. Descriptors such as "scrappy," "hustling," or "plays the game the right way" are bandied about despite the fact there's no way of actually measuring these qualities.

As a general rule, these descriptors tend to fall into three categories: performance-based, effort-based, and character-based.

Performance-based descriptions often take the form of contrasting equivalents—praising a pitcher for being "a pitcher, not a thrower." or being "not just an athlete, but a baseball player."

Effort-based descriptions rely on the old standards of "grit," "hustle," "scrap" and other such synonyms that seem to rely on how much dirt a ballplayer gets on his uniform over the course of a game.

Character-based descriptions ignore the on-field product and instead describe the subject as a person. Announcers frequently like to call ballplayers "professionals" as a compliment. This category also includes praising players for "respecting the game" and being "old school."

Then there are the descriptors that belie categorization: Vin Scully of the Dodgers likes to use the term "Big Butter and Egg Man." George Grande of the Reds has used "Colorado Antelope." Most, however, fall into one of the previous three categories.

From August 11 to 17, 2011, we watched and coded every single television broadcast of Major League Baseball as data gatherers listened for such intangible code words. Coders were compensated thanks to funding gathered via Kickstarter last fall.