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We were reading Deadspin yesterday and came across the map you see above, via flickr user "littlebudapest" and the website Strange Maps. As you can see, the map breaks down the continental United States by baseball allegiances. Notice the little fiefdom the White Sox hold within Cubs Country, like West Berlin surrounded by East Germany during the Cold War. One would think that, with one World Series win in the past ninety years, the Sox would have a larger section.
What some of you might find surprising is just how far into southern and central Illinois Cardinals country runs. Don't be: before they switched stations last year, the 50,000 watt powerhouse of KMOX radio broadcast Cardinals games across the Midwest. Also, during the Golden Days of Radio, the broadcast team for the Cardinals was Harry Caray and Jack Buck, two personalities who each could dominate a broadcast. We've only heard small clips of them calling a Redbirds game together, and with the way they sucked listeners into a game can understand why some downstate feel the Cardinals are the true baseball team of Illinois.
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I love this map!
I wish you could see the East Coast in this photo. I'm curious where they drew the line between Yankees & Sox fans. In Connecticut it was pretty evenly split even in the middle of the state.
It's probably something I did. The photo is linked to the original flickr entry, so you can see the Northeast from there. Yankees country is pretty small, compared to Red Sox nation. Both suck.
There's no way the Nationals' territory is that big. I don't think people in DC even want to be associated with them.
We've only heard small clips of them calling a Redbirds game together, and with the way they sucked listeners into a game can understand why some downstate feel the Cardinals are the true baseball team of Illinois.
Downstate Illinois is a depopulated pit anyway, so give them the crappy Cardinals!
The Cards portion is pretty right on, when I lived down South (in the part shown on the map) they were the team of choice because there were no other major teams around. St. Louis was closer than Atlanta or Texas.
In Central Illinois, the population is pretty evenly split right around the I-72 corridor (Springfield, Decatur, Champaign/Urbana), with it growing increasingly Cards south of there, and increasingly Cubs to the north.
Downstate Illinois is a depopulated pit anyway, so give them the 2006 World Champion Cardinals!
Fixed your post.
Speaking of fixed posts, I linked to Harry Caray's and Jack Buck's pages at the Radio Hall of fame. Harry's page has a couple of classic clips of him calling Cardinals games, when he was in his prime, long before he became a caricature.
2006 St. Louis Cardinals - worst team ever to win a World Series, not to mention one of the biggest flukes of all time.
I know the Cardinals country is correct. My dad and his family all grew up and lived outside of Decatur, and they're huge Cards fans. I think, like them, a lot of folks first got started in St. Louis and moved up north after the war.
All of Oklahoma is not Ranger country. There are plenty of Cards and Royals fans in the north and northeast part of the state. They should have cut Tulsa, Bartlesville, etc out of Ranger country.
The sad thing is that I think the Sox country is really not as large as depicted. But it's all about quality of fan base, not quantity...
It'd be cool to see how this map would look if we included Cuba, Dominicana, Puerto Rico, and Mexico. I remember there being Padres, Dodgers, Yankees, Mets, and White Sox fans down in Mexico, and lots of East Coast teams being popular in Puerto Rico. I'd be curious to see what allegiances the Cubans had to American teams....
Oh god. That is BEAUTIFUL. Thank you for posting this.
One would think that, with one World Series win in the past ninety years, the Sox would have a larger section.
Why? Is a single title over 90 years such a huge accomplishment?
There should be about 500 little dots of cubs country all over the map. About 1/2 of them in Arizona.
It's true about the cubs being all over the country...wgn reigns supreme and offers baseball broadcasts to those that don't have a local team like Louisiana. Signed, a White Sox fan.
Much like the way Chicago people seem to think southern Illinois ends at Kankakee, southern Illinois thinks Chicago is populated by little green men on the foothills of Olympus Mons. Thus, they slant Cardinals.
And why is White Sox territory only a small enclave of Cub land? Because baseball fans in general and Chicago people in particular look at baseball much the same way radical muslims look at metal-spiked whips. It's all about self-flagellation. If the Cubs ever win a series, they'll lose 90 percent of their fan base. The Royals better get ready.
i think it would have been cool to see a map like this before there were teams in arizona and florida. i'd think that the cubs would have been represented there. and as far as the reach of wgn tv, i think the combination of fewer day games and the games being split between wgn and comcast and wciu, et al, have contributed to a loss of a fan base throughout the midwest, which, unfortunately, cubs and tribune management haven't realized.
and i think there are probably at least a handful of different allegiances in the washington, DC area.
I sincerely doubt the Cubs had much of a fan base in Florida pre-Marlins/Devil Rays. Friends who lived there at the time have told me most of that was Braves territory, and a lot of it still is. And my guess is that if superstation access is any indication, Arizona would have been the same way. WTBS has a far greater reach in western states than WGN. More likely, though, I think they would have gone with a California team, if anybody.
A more scientific look at this can be found if you google "common census" and click on their sports maps. By far, the number of random dots in western territories beling to the Red Sox.