Red Sox Fans Hate A-Rod More Than The Rest Of Us

Before I head off to work, I usually hit up my favorite sites to see what's going on in the wonderful world of MLB. I came across a poll over at ESPN.com asking people whether or not they felt A-Rod was credible yesterday at his press conference. Right now, after 66,360 votes, the nos have it by a margin of 52% to 48%. You can break the results down by state and when I looked at those results, I wasn't too surprised. In short, what it says, is that Red Sox fans hate A-Rod more than the rest of us.

At a quick glance, most of the states have a small difference of opinion by about 4% or so, with some scattered exceptions. When you look at the New England states, aka Red Sox Nation, the difference of opinion is much greater.

• Maine = 69% no
• Massachusetts = 69% no
• New Hampshire = 66% no
• Vermont = 57% no

It looks like there are 29 states that are on the "no" side. The only other states above 57% no is Washington (65%), Alaska (65%), and California (58%). Even New York state seems a little less biased. NY believes he was credible with 57% of the voters saying "yes."

I'm not surprised at these results. Most (not all) Red Sox fans always seem to be a little off when it comes to how the rest of the baseball world views things. A lot of Red Sox fans lost their credibility with me back in 2006 when ESPN did a poll asking who was the AL MVP. For those that don't remember, Justin Morneau won over Jeter, with David Ortiz finishing a distant 3rd, with no 1st place votes. In that poll, there were 4 states that thought David Ortiz was the MVP. Those 4 states are the same 4 states mentioned above, aka Red Sox Nation. Jeter was the top vote getter in every other state, except for four: Minnesota, the Dakotas, and Iowa. Those four thought Morneau was the winner, which goes to show the regional bias there as those states all are in Twins country. But I get that. Morneau did after all win the award. But what I don't get, and I still scratch my head about to this day, is how Red Sox fans put their guy above two far better candidates? Oh Red Sox fans. You're an odd bunch, obviously living in your own little world. Again, not all of you are like that, but a good number of you are.

As for how I voted in the poll, I voted twice. Once yes, and once no. Had there been a 3rd choice, something along the lines of "sort of," I would have chose that. I think he tried to be truthful but still left a lot of questions unanswered. I believed some of what he said, but didn't believe him on some things. Hence, my 2 votes. Perhaps more will come out in the future as I'm sure the media still has a lot of questions and I'm sure they're doing all they can to hunt down A-Rod's "cousin." As much as Alex and the Yankees want this to go away, we're not done with this story yet.

Peace, love and Pinstripes,

J-Boogie