By Matt Napolitano, Humor Columnist
The scene: Game 3 of the ALCS at Yankee Stadium. The brisk evening air runs through the bleachers as I, along with my fellow staff members, clutch our Go Hofstra Football sign, waving it in the air, like we just don’t care. Meanwhile, twenty rows in front of us, a young gentleman wearing a jersey with the name “Bazooka” on the back cheers for his beloved Yanks.
Visibly drunk, with an IQ that would comparatively make Sarah Palin a candidate for Mensa, “Bazooka”, donning the bottom half of a Nacho Libre costume, began to egg on an innocent Rangers fan. The Texas fan sat there and welcomed the taunts, simply being classy and sitting back down. For “Bazooka”, this was not enough. He proceeded to antagonize the fan to a point where both would be kicked out. It is actions like this that provide added proof to a new study.
According to a study of fans of Major League Baseball, 94 percent of Bronx Bomber fans are big enough tools to be sold in a Home Depot. This comes as no surprise to bystanders who have ever visited “The House That Steinbrenner Built.”
“Our research was compiled over the 2010 season and no doubt about it, Yankee fans are pains in the ass,” said Dr. Roger Hammond, head of the MLB fan survey, which runs through all 30 major league baseball teams. The survey was conducted at each home ballpark, where a panel of MLB survey executives sat and watched fans like Jane Goodall did the chimps. The sports aficionados were then graded on several aspects including arrogance, noise, appearance and blood alcohol content.
“We sent all our guys to every team’s home game, starting in April when hopes were high, all the way through September with playoffs or fans wondering the easiest route out of the parking lot”, said Hammond.
“After hearing the song, ‘How You Doin?’ repeated on full blast, you know you’re surrounded by idiots,” said Tom Jenkins, associate for the MLB fan survey. “That song has given me Vietnam-like flashbacks of bad accents and juiceheads getting drunk on one cup of $9 beer.” The poll shows the Yankees with a rating of 98 in arrogance, something that can be attributed to winning 27 World Series.
They also rated higher than the 90th percentile in idiocy, instigation, drunkenness and rage. This poll does have a percentage of error though, plus-minus the number of bleacher creatures. Yankee fans did perform subpar in other aspects, the two lowest being courteousness and cohesive arguments. The latter is being attributed to using “Well, we’ve won 27” as an argument for everything with any other fan.
Jenkins recalled an incident at a game against Minnesota, in which a drunken fan fought a pushcart owner. “The guy decked out in A-Rod gear refused to pay $5 for a falafel and his only argument was that he won 27 World Series, I don’t understand what that has to do with food.”
Now, we here at The Chronicle received this survey before many major outlets and we were skeptical of the Yankee fan analysis. So, we went to the belly of the beast, the Yankee Stadium bleachers for playoff baseball. Within ten minutes all was proven to be true. Fans drunk before the first pitch, “How You Doin?” in a loop, the aforementioned “Bazooka” story and Yanks and Rangers fans in arguments with the number 27 flying like f-bombs in a Mel Gibson voicemail.
Before Yankees fans rebel, they should know some of the other ratings. For example, 96 percent of Mets and 92 percent of Cubs fans suffer from clinical depression. As for Red Sox and Indians fans, they ranked the highest in drunkenness.
There was a slight flaw in the study though. The study only covered 29 teams, as the survey did not go into Citizens Bank Park to face Philly fans.
“I mean, come on, we had to make these stats fair, Philly fans egged on Santa for crying out loud,” Hammond said.
