Phillies' fans most loyal, Facebook study says

According to Internet Media:  The latest edition of GQ Magazine named Philadelphia Phillies fans the "meanest in America." The evidence? Booing Santa Claus, vomiting on innocent girls, and getting tased on the field, to name a few incidents.

But at least Phillies fans are the most loyal.

So says a study by Facebook's data team, which crunched the numbers on a wide range of social networking behavior such as clicking the "like" button for a team or posting comments about a game, according to the San Jose Mercury News.

According to the survey, which looked at millions of Facebook members around the world, Phillies' fans were the least likely to root for any other other team. Also, roughly 60 percent of Philadelphia fans had Facebook friends that are also fans of the team.

Some other noteworthy conclusions from the Facebook study:

Oakland A's and Washington Nationals fans are the most social: Oakland fans topped all other teams with an average of over 500 Facebook friends while D.C. fans averaged 450 friends.

The Minnesota Twins and St. Louis Cardinals are loved by women: Nearly half of their Facebook fans are female.

Texas Rangers fans are the most conservative and San Francisco Giants fans are the most liberal: Fans of last year's World Series teams are a contrast in red and blue, according to Facebook data.

The Yankees and Red Sox are the most loved -far and wide: The Bronx Bombers have 3 million Facebook fans, while the Bosox have over 2 million. The teams' appeal is not limited to the Big Apple and Beantown - according to the Mercury News, the teams' fans live farther away on average from Yankee Stadium or Fenway Park than any other teams' fans.

Read More>>

Red Sox and Phillies looking right as reign

According to Internet Media:  Regular readers of our weekly MLB Power Rankings have learned over the years that we've stayed with a hard-and-fast opening week rule: The defending World Series champion starts the season at No. 1 until someone else shows they deserve the nod.

The team coming off its October, er, November magic is usually thinking repeat anyway (throwing out the '98 Marlins). The San Francisco Giants certainly feel like they have a good shot to win title No. 2 since they moved West Ñ after it took them 52 years to finally win their first last season.

But the Giants are going to be the exception to our rule and not earn the No. 1 slot in the first rankings of the season. Let's not forget they barely snuck into the postseason last year, getting in just under the wire as the Padres collapsed. And their offense is a question mark.

But the biggest reason: The Phillies and Red Sox made such major moves over the winter that they look to be prohibitive favorites in their leagues.

 The Phillies -- and not the Yankees-- lured Cliff Lee from Texas. The Red Sox got instantly better by adding Carl Crawford and Adrian Gonzalez, and instantly made the Rays and Padres second-level clubs in the process. So there's our pick for the World Series come October.

Keep in mind the favorites usually don't get there. Eleven different teams have played in the Fall Classic the last six years, compared with nine different teams in the same span in the we-are-parity NFL. In last year's opening rankings, we had the Giants a healthy No. 7 but the eventual Series runner-up Rangers were just No. 18.

So it can be quite a ride from here to there. Our first look at how the teams shape up for 2011:

Read More>>