Natural Boundaries

A friend sent me this and I promised her I would share it on the blog. It's a cool map and probably fairly realistic with regard to the dispersion of fans across the country. I am betting that if baseball teams did a geographic breakdown of their fanbase you would probably see something like this map.

Should I be surprised how small the Mets territory is? Probably not. For all the years they have been successful, the down years have done more to discourage fans. New York is now a bizarre baseball town. I think all fans there are divided into three distinct camps. One quarter are diehard Yankee fans. One quarter are proclaimed Met fans. Then you have the remaining half which will jump on a band wagon and root for whoever is doing better. I noticed that last May when the Yankees played the Mets at Shea. At that juncture, the Mets were solid and the Yankees were scuffling. In the past, at Met-Yankee games at Shea, you would hear just more cheers for the Yanks than you would for the Mets. In the May games, the ratio was completely reversed. Run fronters.

I had always heard how the Midwest was owned by the Cubs and the Cards. This map bears it out. And look at the vast Twins empire. That probably translate to about 10,000 people in attendance.

At the same time, this was probably constructed by some computer geek who had too much time on his hands. But, nevertheless, it is fun to see the natural boundaries of the sport.

Dinner last night: burger "steak" with zucchini at Charcoal following "The Simpsons Movie" at the Arclight.