Surprise: People Like the Yankees

Metaphor? 

Via the Miami New Times comes a new Quinnipiac poll showing that the New York Yankees and Tampa Bay Rays have more supporters in the state of Florida than the Miami Marlins.

Click to enlarge

The margin of error on the poll is 2.2%, so this gulf between Marlins and Yankees fans is statistically significant. But is it that surprising? Florida is a big state, and there can't be many Marlins fans in Tampa, Orlando, Jacksonville, or the panhandle. A breakdown by geographic area confirms this:

Click to enlarge

There are still a lot of Yankees fans in South Florida, but they are vastly outnumbered by Marlins fans. Even the pockets of Red Sox and Mets fans (6%, not included in screen grab) are nowhere near the size of the local fan base.

New Times opted for the pageview-generating headline of "Miami Marlins Are Only Floridians' Third Favorite Baseball Team," but that headline only makes sense if you believed the Marlins actually had any statewide popularity to begin with. Though the team spent 19 seasons playing as the Florida Marlins, it has always been a Miami team.

And though I suspect the Miami market has less support for the home team than other markets (I'm willing to bet St. Louis' Cardinals fan percentage is easily greater than 50%, for instance), in general it is like everywhere else in MLB: full of home-team supporters, with large pockets of transplants and frontrunners rooting for the Yankees, Red Sox, and Mets.

Read more...

Our Service To Marlins Fans

This year's Worlds Series matchup is one of the worst in recent memory for Marlins fans, featuring the Phillies, a major divisional rival, and the Yankees, the scourge of South Florida sports fans. We've seen both teams in the World Series over the past decade, but at least they faced another team we could root for. But this year's matchup is almost as bad as the Mets-Yankees matchup in 2000. All we can do is complain that the Yankees bought the pennant and the Phillies benefitted from a very weak National League, and both grievances only make us look petty.

What are Marlins fans to do? Not much, unfortunately. Aside from rooting for an act of god to postpone the series (which I guess would be sort of unethical), our options appear to be limited to apathy. Such is life sometimes. At the very least, we can live with the fact that last year's Phillies World Series victory eventually gave us a great episode of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia...

But as a public service to our entire reader base (which is only like 30 people, but still), I'll be posting some recommended TV viewing for every night of the series, so none of you will be forced to watch this abomination of a World Series out of boredom. If you don't have cable, then read a book, I'll recommend one of those each night, too. Stay strong, Marlins fans. This will only last a week and a half, at the most. After that, we can just pretend that never happened and distract ourself with Dolphins self-pity.


Yankee fan via Notes from the Nat

Read more...

And I Thought We Were Bad

Here at Marlins Die-Hards, we have done a few things to highlight the fact that we don't believe that our team will keep it's best players. We have the Future Former Marlins series¹. We also have the Marlins Trade Pool. But, as semi-serious as each of those is, it is still mainly a joke because let's face it, we have no clue when it comes to how to manage a ball club or what the real men in suits will choose to do.

So last night as I'm scrolling through my RSS feeds around 11:00pm after a pleasant and uplifiting Marlins victory, I find a new post from the Marlins blog at the Miami Herald. The title? "Where Will Josh Johnson Be In 2012?" Really? Are we starting that already? I opened the the full article to see if it was just a misleading headline or if the writer chose to elaborate in five paragraphs on his point. The latter.

Don't think the New York Yankees weren't watching Josh Johnson with great interest tonight. I'm not talking about the befuddled Yankees' hitters, who squeezed out a run during the seven innings Johnson was on the hill. I'm talking about the big boys upstairs, the Hank Steinbrenners and Brian Cashmans. They know that unless the Marlins lock up Johnson before his arbitration years expire after the 2011 season, he probably won't be around to make the Opening Day start for the Marlins when their new ballpark opens in '12. He'll be gone, either through free agency or via a trade as the Marlins look to recoup value for him.

Look, I understand that JJ, like any Marlin, will be the subject of trade/free agency rumors, because he is very good. But, can't we just enjoy his nastiness and not worry about long term things that we have no control over. He is still under total team control for his final two years of arbitration eligibility. I know he could become a free agent in 2012. Talk to me about that in 2011. Either that or just step in the box and have JJ launch a 98mph heater at your neck. Your choice.

¹ Stay tuned for the resumption of this series.

Read more...

Prepare Yourself

The Yankees are in town, meaning a scourge worse than almost anything imaginable is about to hit Joe Robbie Land Shark Stadium, Yankees fans.

Not pictured: His dignity. Because it doesn't exist.

There are a few teams whose fans often overrun visiting stadia (Red Sox, Cubs, etc.), but Yankees fans in Miami are an acute problem, seeing as there are so many New York transplants that some people still call Miami the Sixth Borough (as an aside, if someone you know calls Miami the Sixth Borough, kindly slap that person about the head and note that New York is nowhere near crazy enough to be associated with Miami. South Florida, after all, is where you can find homeless sex offenders living under a bridge, pythons fighting alligators, and Jose Canseco Street). According to Joe Frisaro, the Marlins are expecting over 100,000 fans this weekend. Guess how many of them will be Yankees fans.

Most Marlins fans would take this opportunity to call out other "fans" (I'm using the word lightly, here), hoping they could guilt the community into showing up and drowning out the Yankees contingent.

I'm not that optimistic. Instead, let me give one piece of advice to any Marlins fans going to the ballpark this weekend: When approached by a Yankee fan, simply stop moving and avoid eye contact. Like the T-Rex, Yankees fans will assume you are not a living creature if you do not sheepishly defend your favorite team against their poorly-conceived insults (Too bad Cantu isn't a gamer like Scotty Brocious!). This may seem too passive a response for most of our readers, but trust me, once you begin speaking to one Yankees fan, you will attract more, until you become engulfed like Jim Brown at the end of Mars Attacks. If that fails, tell them you can't wait for LeBron James to sign with the Heat in 2010 and join Dwyane Wade. You'll likely blow their minds.

Read more...

It's Official: The Real George Steinbrenner Has Become Larry David's Caricature of George Steinbrenner

Things keep getting weirder at Camp Steinbrenner. In the 48th round of the MLB Draft, the Yankees selected West Virginia quarterback Pat White. There's only one problem with this selection, the Miami Dolphins drafted White in the 2nd round of the NFL draft. This is the third time White has been drafted. In 2005, the Dodgers selected White in the fourth round when he was a high school senior. The Angels took White in the 24th round of the 2007 draft. If neither team could convince White to quit football then, I doubt the Yankees can pry him away from an NFL contract without giving him Sabathia money.

While it is not uncommon for baseball teams to take a late-round flier on iffy prospects on White, this has George Steinbrenner's fingerprints all over it. My guess: he would like the Yankees to try out "this Wildcat pitcher everyone has been talking about."

Not to be outdone, the Cubs drafted University of Miami middle linebacker Glen Cook in the 46th round. Cook has not played baseball since he was in the 11th grade. This has been your This Week in Schadenfreude.

As for the Marlins draft, who knows? If you want some analysis, head over to Fish Stripes. Craig can tell you more about the Marlins' draft picks than I can...

Read more...

This Week in Schadenfreude

Via the irrepressible Jason Kottke:

Ticket prices at the new Yankee Stadium are so high that if a New Yorker wants to watch a Mariners/Yankees game from the best seats, it would be a lot cheaper to fly to Seattle, stay in a nice hotel, eat fancy dinners, and see two games.

Option 1: Two tickets to Tuesday night, June 30, Mariners at Yanks, cost for just the tickets, $5,000.

Option 2: Two round-trip airline tickets to Seattle, Friday, Aug. 14, return Sunday the 16th, rental car for three days, two-night double occupancy stay in four-star hotel, two top tickets to both the Saturday and Sunday Yanks-Mariners games, two best-restaurant-in-town dinners for two. Total cost, $2,800. Plus-frequent flyer miles.

Read more...

This Week in Schadenfreude

Courtesy of SI's Jon Heyman:

Yankees manager Joe Girardi seems to have adapted the philosophy of the manager he most admires strategically, Tony La Russa, which is to empty his pen when he can. This stratagem generally works better with trustworthy relievers, however, and the first full inning without Sabathia produced a nine spot for the Indians, making them feel somewhat better about their 3-7 start.

And in a slightly different vein, but hilarious nonetheless:

It's always nice to see the Mets' one true Hall of Famer, Tom Seaver, come back to Flushing. But just so everyone understands, he's paid for these appearances.

Then again, you'd have to pay me to watch the Mets, too.

Read more...