MLB Misery Index

[Optimist]

The MLB Misery Index

By Jim Caple

Page 2

 

There are two types of misery.

 

One is being so close to a championship you can read the vintage on the label of the champagne bottle … only to watch everything roll away between the first baseman's legs. The other is losing so many games for so many years that there are cases of bubbly in the clubhouse that have been gathering dust since Don Zimmer had hair.

 

Which type of misery is worse for fans, to root for teams that lose painfully in the end or teams that lose at the beginning, the middle and the end? Look at it this way. Would you want to be rejected so often that a member of the opposite sex hasn't appeared with you in public for 15 years without a restraining order? Or would you rather have a long relationship with a supermodel who lets you get as far as third base, then suddenly leaves you at the altar while she runs off with your worst enemy, leaving you feeling rotten and on the hook for the priest, the band, the florist, the caterer and the final 20 payments left on the engagement ring?

 

Which one is worse, to root for a team that always loses or to root for a team that falls painfully short of winning it all? That's easy. Whichever situation your favorite team is currently in. But we're weighing both types of misery equally in Page 2's updated Misery Index of baseball fans (the original Index ran at the start of the 2004 season, and as you may have heard, a few long-suffering teams from Boston and Chicago have won the World Series since then).

 

The Misery Index is a 60-point system that measures two types of fan misery -- despair (produced by losing seasons) and pain (brought on by agonizing ends to winning seasons). There are six 10-point categories in the Misery Index (see table at right).

 

Link

 

Boston and NY:

 

25. (tie) Boston Red Sox

Enough already! We get it! You won. Now, can we have a moment of peace? Sheesh, you guys are practically as bad as Yankees fans now.

 

30. New York Yankees

You've got to be kidding, right?

[schillingouttheks]

What the f***? We're almost as bad as Yankees fans? We don't rub s*** in anyone's faces EXCEPT for the Yankees fans that have given us s*** up until 2004...whatever.

 

People just hate New England because it's the best sports region around

[Soxfan1]

Really really off. I admit we can get bad some times but we are not worse then the yankees.

[yankeessuck013]

Leave it to a yankee fan to post this topic....