Best fans in baseball, my ass.

@ KL - That was something short of enlightening.

I haven’t had the luxury of traveling to many other stadiums, so perhaps the more baseball-worldly among you could shed some light on this subject. What do you see as the basic criteria for rating a fanbase, and which groups best meet these criteria?

The only thing more insufferable and useless than ranking baseball “best fans” is a Mets’ fan.  But for the sake of argument - here’s my criteria:  Do they buy tickets? 
If yes - Do they attend the game? 
If yes - Do they take their son onto the field to beat down an umpire? 
If no - they are hereby listed among the greatest fans the world has ever known.  They have to buy their own trophy, however.

How misleading.  I was hoping that this would be in the vain of a headline I saw a few years ago on FJM “Twins to get taste of Angel’s Colon”.

I’ve always found the ‘best fans in baseball’ label to be an enigma. 

For years, particularly during their dynasty of 1996 - 2000, Yankee fans were labeled ‘the best’.  I would argue it’s really easy to be a fan of a team that is expected to participate in the World Series annually.  And from my experiences, Yanks fans were typically uninformed about the actual baseball universe - you know, anything that happened outside of a Yankees game.  They were ‘the best’ simply because they were loud - though I’m not sure I agree with that description as meaning ‘the best’.

I was fascinated by the amount of knowledge the fans in Atlanta had about everything - both leagues and all types of stats.  Cleveland also impressed me.  Boston struck me as pretty well informed, though incredibly focused on the Yanks-Red Sox rivalry, as though the other 28 teams are merely an irrelevant side show.

Houston’s fans were great, and while attending the matchup of Clemens and Maddux (which at the time was the first meeting of two pitchers with 300 wins each in some ridiculous amount of time) I was barraged with interesting factiods about both pitchers and other historical greats.

I’ve attended games at 17 stadiums, and it is always a very localized experience - as in, the 15 fans seated directly around you and a few other vocal fans in your vicinity really control your impression of the entire fan base.  But the sports bars around the stadium usually give a pretty good idea of what the locals know and how they view the game.

As a Twins fan myself, our fanbase tends to parrot our tv announcers and local newspaper reporters with baseless addages and usually incorrect ‘facts’, though we are getting better.

I thought that whole “best fans in baseball” thing was kind of invented by Peter Gammons back when Jim Edmonds was traded to (or re-signed with, I can’t remember which) the Cardinals.  He’d talk about where Edmonds could go or why he was rejuvenated or something, and it was always accompanied by ” . . .with the chance of playing in front of the best fans in baseball every day.”  I think it was trotted out again when Gammons would report on rumors of Edmonds trying to convince other free agents to come to St. Louis.

It’s mostly meaningless, I think.  Every team has a core of great fans. Every team has knuckleheads. I think Greg M gets it mostly right.  Does the team get support?  Do they understand who is to be cheered and who is to be booed without having to have a jackass columnist or a flashing scoreboard tell them?  If so, they’re pretty good fans.

My problem with the “best fans in baseball” thing is that it seems a lot of Cardinals fans are more interested in whether or not the Cubs are losing, not if the Cards are winning.

Having spent many years as a fan in New York, Atlanta, Cincinatti and Arlington, and having visited most ballparks in the country, I would tend to agree with the statement, adding to it that they are also the most knowledgeable and objective fans in the game….
The love and respect their guys, but if Derek Jeter played in St. Louis, he wouldn’t be quite the god he is in NY.  He would be loved and respected as a very good, bordering on great shortstop, as opposed to the BEST EVER that many Yankees are treated as, even though they’re not.
NY fans are just about as rabid, but STL fans get it, too.

I actually like when the Cards come to Milwaukee to play the Brewers. They tend to bring a decent number of fans to the city & ballpark during the week, and I’ve always found them pleasant and knowledgable. Compared to the Cubs fans who come up to games, the Cards fans are saints.

That is, until the Brewers stomped all over them late last year and had the gall to untuck their shirts in St Louis (and watch a game-winning home run for 1 or 2 seconds too long). Now, for some reason, the Brewers are the enemy and Ryan Braun is second only to the Cubs and Satan. Many of the fans are still pleasant (usually the older ones), but it’s amazing how quickly they seemed to change. (and, I’d say, any fanbase that worships Albert Pujols - for all his worthiness - has no right to complain about hitters watching their home runs).

In reference to the Klaw remark, it might be due to previous chat(s) where he’s received comments like:

Josh (St. Louis MO)
You’re a putz. You said the cardinals players this year have no star potential and very little every day potential. If they were on the Yankees or Red Sox you would be jumping up and down and proclaiming their induction to the hall of fame already. You ESPN guys are all a bunch of Schlubs.

Keith Law (1:22 PM)
Greatest fans in the universe, everyone. With the reading comprehension skills of a hamster.