Atlanta--Confirming a long-hypothesized bias among baseball enthusiasts, researchers have completed a multi-year longitudinal study that asked fans of major league teams--as well as Pittsburgh Pirates' fans--whether they preferred a "pitcher" or a "belly itcher." Overall, 79.9% of fans opted for a pitcher, with only 16.4% choosing a belly itcher; 3.2% of respondents were undecided, and a handful expressed no preference.
"The results were pretty much what we expected," commented lead researcher Bob Stanhope of Emory University. "If anything, we were surprised at the amount of people who actually did want a belly itcher."
In conducting the survey, researchers took numerous variables into account, controlling for stadium-dimensions, team fielding percentage, and Barry Zito. Among fans of individual teams, the percentage of those preferring a pitcher to a belly itcher ranged from a high of 92.4% among fans of the Philadelphia Phillies to a low of 68.4% for Houston Astros fans, who have largely given up.
In a companion study, 73.8% of fans opted for a "catcher" over a "belly scratcher."
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