VAN GOGH, Skull with Cigarette
Thursday, April 5, 2007
"The Inexorable Zero" and Female Umpires in Major League Baseball
Last week, 30-year old Ria Cortesio became the first female to umpire a major league exhibition baseball game since 1989, when Pam Postema--who would later sue, and settle out of court with, Major League Baseball and Triple A baseball for sex discrimination after Triple A baseball declined to renew her contract--became the first female to ump a big league exhibition game. Based on publicly-available accounts, Cortesio did a good job umpiring an afternoon match-up between the Chicago Cubs and the Arizona Diamondbacks.Cortesio is currently a Double-A umpire in the Southern League, where she has been for the last 5 years since starting her umpiring career at age 21, and like other minor league umpires, she was called upon to umpire one of the many spring training games on this year's schedule. No female has ever umpired a regular season big league game, just like no female has ever refereed an NFL game or officiated an NHL game (in contrast to the NBA, where two women, including Violet Palmer whom we've blogged about, are referees).
Over on Workplace Prof Blog, Ole Miss law professor Paul Secunda has an excellent post on the possible presence of sex discrimination in explaining why Major League Baseball has never hired a female umpire for a regular season game. He writes about the employment discrimination concept of "the inexorable zero," established by the U.S. Supreme Court in Teamsters v. United States, 431 U.S. 324 (1977). As Professor Secunda details,
[I]n pattern and practice group employment discrimination cases, courts rely on statistics to determine whether an employer has a standard operating procedure of discriminating against certain groups, like women. In such cases, when no women have been hired, as is the case with female major league umpires, "fine tuning of the statistics [do not] obscure the glaring absence of minority [employees].... [T]he company's inability to rebut the inference of discrimination came not from a misuse of statistics but from ‘the inexorable zero’"). See Teamsters, 431 U.S. 324, 342 n.23 (1977).As a result, Professor Secunda writes, even without knowing how many females have applied and were rejected by MLB for umpiring jobs--which would normally be crucial data in a sex discrimination claim--MLB
[C]annot hide the fact that [it] has not hired ONE female major league baseball umpire in its entire existence . . . based on this Slate article and other articles on this topic I have read in the press, that there are at least SOME qualified females who could be MLB umpires in the relevant labor pool, I think the inference of discrimination is appropriate here.The Slate article to which Professor Secunda refers discusses a successful lawsuit by a secretary named Bernie Gera, who in 1973 won a five-year-long lawsuit for the right to umpire a Single A game. Also, as I noted earlier, Pam Postema sued for sex discrimination after she was let go in 1991 (allegedly--according to Michelle Tsai of Slate--for too often throwing players out of games) and settled out of court.
In addition to possible legal claims, I wonder about broader social changes in how we treat women that might enable more women to obtain officiating jobs in the MLB and other pro sports leagues. Marquette law professor Scott Moss illuminates that point in his reply to Professor Secunda's post:
Another reason Paul's suspicion of gender discrimination seems valid is the blatant nature of baseball players' and officials' discrimination against the few women serving as sports reporters and baseball teams' front office officials. You hear comments like "women don't belong here" and harshly misorynistic attacks. So it's not a stretch to suspect that one reason there are so few female umpires is that same anti-women bias.So is the absence of female officials in Major League Baseball and other pro sports leagues a reflection of discrimination by MLB and those other leagues, or is it a more cultural/social problem in how we treat and regard and women? Or is it something else?It's true that . . . probably few women apply or get the requisite training (e.g., a background in high school or college baseball). But "there aren't many women in this field at all" isn't just an alternative explanation to "they're keeping women out";
historically, fields with few women tend to feature more discrimination, precisely because women are seen as "outsiders" who "don't belong." A lot of the really bad cases of physical harassment, for example, tend to be about "the first women pipefitter at XYZ Corp." or "the first women firefighter in the City of XYZ," etc.
DVD-Saw 3
This is a horrible movie. A coworker recommended it to me, and I can't believe I wasted the time to watch this piece of shit. I've seen all three in this horror series, and they all suck.
Basically, Saw is about killing people in creative ways where they must choose between excruciating pain and death. Usually, their hesitation when it comes to this leads them to both the pain and the death. In short, it is cinematic sadism, and I am just not into this.
I confess to not liking movies like this. I'm not into cruelty. I realize that it sometimes must be depicted on the screen to advance a story, but there is no story here. It is just torture for amusement. Don't waste your life watching this shit.
Basically, Saw is about killing people in creative ways where they must choose between excruciating pain and death. Usually, their hesitation when it comes to this leads them to both the pain and the death. In short, it is cinematic sadism, and I am just not into this.
I confess to not liking movies like this. I'm not into cruelty. I realize that it sometimes must be depicted on the screen to advance a story, but there is no story here. It is just torture for amusement. Don't waste your life watching this shit.
Tuesday, April 3, 2007
DVD-Casino Royale
Daniel Craig is 007 in what is the best Bond movie I have ever seen. Casino Royale delivers like no other Bond movie before it. Clearly, the producers of the Bond franchise decided to deal with the new competition from the Bourne and Misson:Impossible franchises by stripping away the hokey gadgets and making a grittier and more realistic flick.
The best action sequence in the movie is the stunning chase involving freerunning. It will blow you away that there are people in this world that can do these things. That section alone makes this movie worth watching, but CR continues to deliver. Craig is excellent as the man with the license to kill, and you get a lot of backstory on the character that was missing from the other flicks. In short, Royale is a do-over for the series, and I think it was due.
I don't know where they will go from here, but Craig has made his case that he deserves to be Bond. Naysayers be damned.
The best action sequence in the movie is the stunning chase involving freerunning. It will blow you away that there are people in this world that can do these things. That section alone makes this movie worth watching, but CR continues to deliver. Craig is excellent as the man with the license to kill, and you get a lot of backstory on the character that was missing from the other flicks. In short, Royale is a do-over for the series, and I think it was due.
I don't know where they will go from here, but Craig has made his case that he deserves to be Bond. Naysayers be damned.
Monday, April 2, 2007
New Sports Law Scholarship
New this week:
Richard T. Karcher, The use of players’ identities in fantasy sports leagues: developing workable standards for right of publicity claims, 111 PENN STATE LAW REVIEW 557 (2007)
Joshua Peck, Note, Last resort: the threat of federal steroid legislation--is the proposed legislation constitutional?, 75 FORDHAM LAW REVIEW 1777 (2006)
Sunday, April 1, 2007
Random Thoughts on Various Subjects 14
1. The IDIOT OF THE WEEK award goes to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales who has reversed himself on the US attorney scandal and pretty much fucked himself. Al says he is "fighting for the truth." Give me a fucking break.
The whole affair is a bit stupid and amounts to a Democrat witchhunt. Al should have done the smart thing and pled the fifth. It might make him look a crook, but I find that preferrable to looking like an idiot.
2. I don't see how Bush can criticize the pork in the bill Congress passed trying to end funding for the war and set a deadline for troop withdrawal. It is amazing how this guy can become a small government conservative when it is expedient. I just want to know what this fucktard was doing for the last six years before the Democrats took back Congress.
3. Giuliani is the man to beat when it comes to the GOP race. I think only Fred Thompson could derail the former NYC mayor. And why is this? Because politics is about personality. Ultimately, the muddled middle of the American electorate goes for the guy with the most charisma and personal charm. It is a popularity contest and nothing more. Unfortunately, we can't measure things like this in a scientific manner. It is a question of preference and aesthetics.
The reason libertarians have never made meaningful progress in electoral politics is a shortage of personalities. We have no rockstars except in the fields of entertainment, business, and academia. Sorry, Ron Paul. I'll vote for you, but policy and principles don't win elections. I wish they did.
4. I'm not much of a warmonger, but I think the Brits should put it to Iran. Those fuckheads need their asses cut.
5. Neither Will Ferrell nor Family Guy are funny. I just don't see why people laugh at this shit. OTOH, Jackass, the movies, and the spinoffs with Bam and Steve-O is the funniest shit I've ever seen. Humor is a strange thing. I have discovered this in my own life. When I try to be funny, nobody laughs. When I am not trying to be funny, people find me hilarious. I don't get it.
6. Life is too short to waste it on women who can't make up their minds whether they like you or not. Focus on the women who do like you and things will go well for you.
7. Visitors to this blog may note that some of the YouTube videos I post here don't play. All I can say is blame it on Viacom.
The whole affair is a bit stupid and amounts to a Democrat witchhunt. Al should have done the smart thing and pled the fifth. It might make him look a crook, but I find that preferrable to looking like an idiot.
2. I don't see how Bush can criticize the pork in the bill Congress passed trying to end funding for the war and set a deadline for troop withdrawal. It is amazing how this guy can become a small government conservative when it is expedient. I just want to know what this fucktard was doing for the last six years before the Democrats took back Congress.
3. Giuliani is the man to beat when it comes to the GOP race. I think only Fred Thompson could derail the former NYC mayor. And why is this? Because politics is about personality. Ultimately, the muddled middle of the American electorate goes for the guy with the most charisma and personal charm. It is a popularity contest and nothing more. Unfortunately, we can't measure things like this in a scientific manner. It is a question of preference and aesthetics.
The reason libertarians have never made meaningful progress in electoral politics is a shortage of personalities. We have no rockstars except in the fields of entertainment, business, and academia. Sorry, Ron Paul. I'll vote for you, but policy and principles don't win elections. I wish they did.
4. I'm not much of a warmonger, but I think the Brits should put it to Iran. Those fuckheads need their asses cut.
5. Neither Will Ferrell nor Family Guy are funny. I just don't see why people laugh at this shit. OTOH, Jackass, the movies, and the spinoffs with Bam and Steve-O is the funniest shit I've ever seen. Humor is a strange thing. I have discovered this in my own life. When I try to be funny, nobody laughs. When I am not trying to be funny, people find me hilarious. I don't get it.
6. Life is too short to waste it on women who can't make up their minds whether they like you or not. Focus on the women who do like you and things will go well for you.
7. Visitors to this blog may note that some of the YouTube videos I post here don't play. All I can say is blame it on Viacom.
