Determining Major League Baseball ALDS Winners by Cultural Superiority

Forget about who will win on the field. Let's pick the winners of each League Division Series by a different metric: cultural superiority. Now, we get that likes and dislikes are subjective and just because something is popular, doesn't mean it's necessarily better. Have fun with this, please.

We decided to look at eight tree-top metrics to determine cultural superiority. The categories we chose are purposefully general, to give us the opportunity to compare on a level playing field. They are: City Nicknames, Average Ballpark Attendance, Popular Food Offerings, Famous Musicians, Songs About The City, Famous Actors, TV Shows Set in the City, Beer.

If those eight things can't tell you which city is better, nothing can. Let's get to it, in the American League first.

NEW YORK YANKEES AND DETROIT TIGERS

City Nicknames

New York: The Big Apple, The City So Nice, They Named It Twice, The City That Never Sleeps, Empire City, Gotham.

Detroit: Motown, Motor City, D-Town. 

Winner: New York. Gotham puts it over the top.

Average Ballpark Attendance

 New York: 45,107, 89.7% capacity (2^nd in the league)

Detroit: 32,617, 79.1 capacity (13^th in the league 

Winner: New York.

Popular Food Offerings

New York: NYC-style pizza, deli foods, hot dogs, bagels.

Detroit: According to this website, the most popular foods in Detroit are the Coney and Deep Dish Pizza. The pizza is better-known in Chicago and the Coney is named after A PART OF NEW YORK.

Winner: New York.

Famous Musicians

This would be hard if we used all of New York, so I tried to limit this just to people who are from the Bronx, where the Yankees play.

New York: The full list is here, but let's look at some of the more famous names… Mary J. Blige, Grandmaster Flash, Ace Frehley of Kiss, Fat Joe, Bill Joel, J-Lo, KRS-One, Tito Puente, Slick Rick, Carly Simon, Luther Vandross, The Chiffons and Inspectah Deck of Wu-Tang to name a few.

Detroit: The full list is here, but the list is highlighted by… Smokey and the Miracles (and all of Motown), Madonna, Stevie Wonder, Parliament-Funkadelic, Alice Cooper, Kid Rock and Eminem.

Winner: Detroit. Even if we included the rest of New York included, the nod goes to Motown. New York may be a close second in the entire country though.

Songs About The City

New York: Too many to name. We should go Sinatra, considering the Yankees play it after every win, but we'll go more contemporary:  

Detroit: Everyone in Detroit seems to love signing and rapping about Detroit. I actually think every single Eminem or Kid Rock song has at least some mention of Detroit. It's incredible. Plus, you add Detroit Rock City by Kiss and this by Sammy…

Winner: Push. Look, I'm not voting against Sammy. I'm sorry.

Famous Actors

New York: Again, just from the Bronx…the list is huge. Woody Allen, Anne Bankcroft, Ellen Barkin, George Carlin, James Caan, Red Buttons, Tony Curtis, Peter Falk, Jon Favreau, Lea Michele, Al Pacino, Jerry Orbach, Rob and Carl Reiner, Wesley Snipes…it goes on and on.

Detroit: Not a great list, currently highlighted by Ken Jeong of The Hangover and Community and JK Simmons of, well, everything. George C. Scott, Gilda Radner, Lily Tomlin and George Peppard of the A-Team were from Detroit. Tom Selleck too. Oh, and Bruce Campbell.

Winner: The Bronx.

TV Shows Set in the City

New York: Basically 80% of all television shows, ever.

Detroit: Detroit 1-8-7 which was ok, but got cancelled. 8 Simple Rules, Martin, Hung, Sister Sister. Man, other than Freaks and Geeks this is a pretty terrible list.

Winner: New York 

Beer

New York: The most popular beer in New York, per the NY Post in March, is Sam Adams. That's from Boston. Lame.

Detroit: The Stroh Brewery Company was long a partner of the Detroit Tigers. Schlitz may not taste better than Sam Adams, but at least it had local roots.

Winner: Detroit.

Cultural Superiority: 5-2 New York (one tie)

 TEXAS RANGERS AND TAMPA BAY RAYS

City Nicknames

Dallas: Big D. Wikipedia said people call it The Jingle City. I hope that's true.

Tampa: The Big Guava, Lightning Capital of the World, Cigar Capital of the World (Ybor City), America's Next Greatest City

Winner: The Big Guava is awesome, but not awesome enough. Dallas.

Average Ballpark Attendance

Dallas: 36,382, 74% capacity (10^th in the league)

Tampa: 18,878 55.4% capacity (29^th in the league)

Winner: Rangers

Popular Food Offerings

Dallas: Barbeque and Tex Mex.

Tampa: According to this, it's the Grouper sandwich. This also gives credit to Tampa for inventing the Cuban sandwich.

Winner: Good barbeque beats almost anything else. Dallas.

Famous Musicians

Dallas: A ho-hum list, including… Dimebag Darrell of Pantera, Meat Loaf, Erykah Badu,  Edie Brickell, Kelly Clarkson, Selena Gomez, Norah Jones, Steve Miller, LeAnn Rimes, Jessica Simpson, Stephen Stills, Usher, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Vanilla Ice.

Tampa: If it wasn't for Ray Charles, this list wouldn't exist. David Sanborn is from Tampa as well, but I bet he doesn't admit it. Ooh, Nick and Aaron Carter!

Winner: Dallas

  Songs About The City

Dallas: Well, I really wanted to embed this (seriously click that for it's awfulness), but be it that they call themselves the Texas Rangers…

Tampa: One time people thought Kayne did a re-mix of Gold Digger with Tampa lyrics until they realized it was a fake. I'm almost embarrassed FOR you, Tampa.

Winner: Texas

Famous Actors

Dallas: Luke and Owen Wilson, Robin Wright, Angie Harmon, Stephanie March, probably nine other people from Law and Order shows, Meat Loaf who was great in Fight Club. It's not a great list, but it's an okay list.

Tampa: Oh, Tampa. Name one person you've even heard of and I'll send you a Hulk Hogan (Tampa!) t-shirt. (Note: I will not actually send you a t-shirt.

Winner: Dallas

TV Shows Set in the City

Dallas: Dallas.

Tampa: Tampa can't even get a freaking Real Wives?????

Winner: Dallas

Beer

Dallas: Yes.

Tampa: Tampa brews almost 50% of the world's Yuengling. But that's a Philly beer, sorry.

Winner: Tampa, I guess.

Cultural Superiority: 7-1 Dallas.

So there you have it, New York and Dallas and it's really not even close. Now let's see if their teams are as good as their cities.