Bias in professional athletics is a subject of growing interest, perhaps the only place — in a setting stocked with outrageous workforce salaries — where organized sport remains a microcosm of society.

The latest comes from Daniel Hamermesh of the University of Texas, where his as-yet-unreleased study shows that about a percentage point of umpires' rulings in baseball is influenced by racism. Hamermesh's team studied 2.1 million major-league pitches and found a pattern of inaccurate calls. When pitchers and umps were the same race, the umpire was more likely to rule in the pitcher's favor.

Such disparities disappeared when stadiums swelled to capacity and on two-strike counts and full counts.

This study comes on the heels of this spring's study from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. It suggested that white NBAplayers get an undue benefit when fouls are called. Unlike the current scandal involving ref Tim Donaghy, David Stern's league was able to sweep this officiating problem under the rug.

Man, listen: For years we've heard intimations that the Oakland Raiders' black uniforms have led to their annually leading the NFL in penalties as much as any edict from management to play dirty. Now we've got the weight of academia behind what we've long suspected. So, I'm absolutely down with these studies. Enough of them and we might just end up with a meaningful understanding of what putting white hats on cowboys has done to us as a westerner society.