Telling Statistics

Since Major League Baseball opens its 2014 season today and time, therefore, begins, we might peruse The Atlantic's county-by county map of which parts of the United States like which baseball teams:

The original can be found here.

The mapmakers used number of likes for an MLB team's official Facebook page, grouped by county. Whichever team had the most likes in a county "won" the county. So you an see that much of Texas leans towards the Arlington-based Rangers, except for the patch of Astro fandom around Houston, three counties where there wasn't enough data to pick one, and a few counties in black that we'll get to in a minute. It also holds most of my home state, leaving out the northeast corner of Cardinal rooters, some more of that black and Dewey County's longstanding support for the Pittsburgh Pirates. The Chicago Cubs have a good swath of Indiana, Illinois and Iowa, while the Chicago White Sox hold the city itself and a few surrounding counties.

The westernmost baseball fans in America, the residents of Kauai County in Hawaii, root for the East Coast Washington Nationals. There are no counties, it seems, where a plurality of folks root for the Toronto Blue Jays, the Oakland Athletics or, as you might guess, the New York Mets.

Now, about that black color. It is, of course, the color representing counties where the majority of Facebook likes go to the New York Yankees. Yes, the Yankees hold 27 World Series rings, more than any other team in the major leagues. But as everyone who has read their Tolkien knows, one finds the source of the power of the Ring in "the land of Mordor, where the shadows lie." Unfortunately for the good of our nation's soul, it seems Mordor has a long and varied reach.