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April 28, 2010
"We have uniforms and everything"
P3270132, originally uploaded by soul_motor.
Here's something I didn't expect. Nielsen did some kind of analysis of the internet, and found that the Cleveland Indians are the most despised team in baseball. The New York Yankees came in a paltry fifth.
Contrary to popular belief, the Yankees are only the fifth-most despised team in the majors, according to an Internet algorithm built by Nielsen Co. that analyzes how people feel about certain things. This service typically uses various keywords to find out whether people have positive, negative or neutral reactions to different brands and products. No team registered a negative mark on Nielsen's "sentiment scale," which ranges from -5 to 5, but the Yankees (1.8) were one of only six teams to score lower than 2.
Now I can think of one reason why this might be: although a lot of people hate the Yankees, a lot of people also love the Yankees. They're undoubtedly the most popular team in baseball, with fans in every corner of the globe. With all due respect to my Cleveland friends, the Indians just don't have that kind of support. (The, uh, "traditional" mascot does not help.)
So, although there are a lot of negative things being said about the Yankees, there are just as many people saying positive things about them. Naturally, the "negative" score is going to get counteracted by the "positive" score. However, I would say that if a survey was done asking people to name their least favorite team, the Yankees would get a greater percentage than anyone else.
The Red Sox came it at number 2 on the list, probably because of their insufferable fans and the perpetual arms race with the Yankees. Three and four were the Reds and Astros, who again suffer from a lack of people saying nice things about them, rather than pure Yankee-level despisement.
The Chicago White Sox were number 6. Actually, I didn't know there were any Sox fans who could use a computer. Kidding, please don't run onto the field shirtless, and beat me up.
The list only goes to ten, so I am not sure where the Cubs ended up on this list, but I would be willing to guess they are near the top. The Cubs can be kind of annoying, I will admit.
entry no. 1441
Posted at April 28, 2010 04:29 PM