THE COST OF DISCRIMINATION - A STUDY OF MAJOR-LEAGUE BASEBALL

This article seeks to determine whether discriminators perform differe ntly than nondiscriminators, whether that performance difference serve s to inhibit discrimination, and, if so, how the process works. It inv estigates an area with abundant data on both the racial mix of partici pants and firm performance-major league baseball. A sizeable and stati stically significant relationship between winning and the presence of black players in the starting Lineup is found to hold for the early ye ars of the 1950s and to decline, as expected, as the average number of black ballplayers on major league rosters increased. However, a puzzl e emerges in the fact that a significantly slower rate of integration was pursued in the American League (AL) than in the National League (N L) despite there being nearly identical associations between black pla yers and winning in each. The most likely solution to that puzzle is t hat fan preferences differed-each black player on an AL team appears t o have reduced attendance by significantly more than he would have on a NL team. Examination also reveals that when substitute players are c onsidered separately, the positive association between the number of b lacks employed and winning is much weaker, whereas the negative associ ation between black ballplayers and attendance is the same. Not coinci dentally, black players made up a significantly smaller proportion of substitutes than they did of starters throughout the entire period.