The Best And Worst Fans In Baseball
Baseball games offer a much different fan experience from the other three major sports in North America. NFL games are day-long cultural events that can be felt throughout the city, and given that there’s only eight regular season home games each year, they will consistently sell out. NBA and NHL games, while much more frequent, offer non-stop action and can entertain hardcore and casual fans alike.
But watching a regular-season MLB game is a different thing entirely. Firstly, a 162-game regular season makes it hard to become sufficiently invested in a mid-July interleague game to justify spending $30 on a ticket and $10 on a hot dog. And secondly, baseball games are kind of boring – and that’s coming from a fan. Very little is really happening for about 80% of the 3-plus hours.
All this makes it much more admirable when a city shows up year-round, even in lean years. For example, even the lowly Pirates continue to draw consistent crowds, despite hanging near the cellar of the MLB standings for nearly two decades.
On the other side of the equation are Tampa Bay Rays fans (if they exist). While they filled hideous Tropicana Field during the Rays run to the 2008 World Series, they’ve apparently all headed back to the beach, though their squad are still atop the AL East.
Whether it’s because of tradition, success, a nice venue, or the lack of anything better to do, some cities are baseball cities, and others aren’t.Here’s a few of each.
The Good
Pittsburgh Pirates
As mentioned above, the team hasn’t been competitive for years, the management has given the city little reason to be excited, and the Bucs routinely disappoint. Yet their attendance numbers hardly fluctuate. They drew the same number of fans in 2005, when they had the worst record in the NL, as they did in 1992, when they made it to the LCS.
St. Louis Cardinals
They like to call themselves “The Best Baseball Town in America,” have a reputation for being much less nasty than the notorious hecklers in cities like Philadelphia, and have kept showing up in championship contention years and losing seasons.
Boston Red Sox
Yes, they’re obnoxious, whining for 82 years about how they were “cursed,” and now they’re wearing pink hats, singing “Sweet Caroline”, and acting like they cheer for the best franchise in professional sports. But the fact is that they turn out in droves – whether the team is on the road or at home.And they hate the Yankees, which scores them points here.
The Bad
Tampa Bay Rays
They have a terrible name and a terrible venue, but the Rays have been an exciting team for five years now, but still can’t sell tickets. Their fanbase should be made up of retirees with time and money on their hands, but too many of them are East Coast transplants, their sports loyalties lying elsewhere.
New York Yankees
It doesn’t happen often, but when they lose, the attendance actually drops quite a bit.
Besides, it’s fun to hate on Yankees fans.
The Ugly
Los Angeles Dodgers
They have a habit of beating opposing fans into comas.
OK, maybe not a habit, but they did it once, and that’s a total dick move.
