Baseball Fans Forums
I've come to the conclusion that you can tell a lot about a team's fan base from the home they keep on the internet.
I recently was thinking of ways to make my links of the page more unique, as most every baseball blog on the internet links to other baseball blogs, and the big baseball sites (Baseball Prospectus, Baseball Primer, etc.).
I came up with finding each team's message boards, ignoring the MLB.com message boards, as they're a terrible place to talk about baseball (poorly moderated, and pretty immature). The results were interesting (not added yet).
There were many fan sites that were about as active as you'd expect.
The Yankees have a terrific, fast moving board, as do the Mets, which is what you'd expect from the two teams in the largest market in the US.
But some of the best fan boards belonged to small market teams.
The Reds have the best fan board on the internet, and I'm not just saying that because of personal bias. The Royals have a great board despite being long suffering, and the Oriole's fans have a nice place to call their own. Heck, even the Brewers and Tigers have nice message boards, giving credence to the idea that long suffering fans might be the most loyal.
But then there were results that were surprising.
I couldn't find a decent Dodgers messageboard anywhere. Same with the Angels, despite them being World Champions. The Red Sox, despite having some of the most ravenous fans in baseball, don't get much message board traffic.
Expansion teams from the last ten years fared pretty poorly. The Rockies, D-Backs, and Devil Rays don't have great boards (with the D-Rays having no board at all that I could find, apart from the MLB board). The Marlins have a nice community though, perhaps as a result of an early world series win in the franchise history?
Interesting stuff, and alot of great places to visit if you're browsing the net with nothing to do. If you know of any superior fan specific message boards to the ones I've linked, then make a list yourself.
Oh, and I've got to say the Oakland A's message board made me a little sick. You find the same griping and moaning there as on every other team site. Don't they know how lucky they are? ;)
