Fans Hate The Cincinnati Reds More Than The New York Yankees?

The latest article by the Wall Street Journal puzzles me to say the least.

According to the report , the Cincinnati Reds are the third most hated team in baseball with a 1.5 ranking.

An Internet algorithm built by Nielsen Co . analyzes how people feel about certain things, and the nation apparently hates the Reds. The system uses various keywords to find out whether people have positive, negative or neutral reactions to different brands and products.

The most hated team oddly enough was the Cleveland Indians (.9). What's up with all the Ohio hate? The Boston Red Sox (1.1) were second, a much more believable ranking.

My thoughts on how this could happen are directly at the self hatred for the two Ohio teams. Reds and Indians fans are extremely hard on their respective teams. The losing adds up and you would have to scour the web to find a lot of positive message board comments and blog posts praising the two franchises.

For some reason the brand logo isn't well liked either. What's wrong with a big "C"? I happen to like Mr. Red, why hate him Rosie and Mr. Redlegs? The jerseys are as plain as it gets.

It's not like there a ton of players on the team to hate. Joey Votto, Jay Bruce, Brandon Phillips,

There is no way the Reds would finsih third in a straight-up poll of fans on most hated teams. The Yankees (1.8) only finished fifth in the rankings! Clearly that isn't the case—the Yanks have been coined "The Evil Empire!"

This study might go on to prove something that fans already know, the team sucks and we are going to type, read, and talk about how much they suck. It's depressing to think about, but it's true—fans are fed up with the constant rebuilding, retooling, and reloading.

We the fans want to win NOW. I don't care about how awesome the prospects in AAA are. How good is my team right now?

Or maybe it has to do with the location of the teams. Both Ohio teams are in the top three in most hated while the Bay Area San Francisco Giants (4.5) and Oakland Athletics (4.2) were the most-liked teams on this scale.

Either way this study really perplexes me. If anybody can make some sense out of this...help me out.