Obnoxious. Insufferable. Off-Putting. Dislikeable. These are just some of the words used to describe annoying baseball fans.

With spring training coming up in a few weeks, do we baseball fans need to get engaged on how to be more pleasant and agreeable before the regular season begins?

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Crestline surveyed a thousand baseball fans to find out who the worst behaved are.

The findings were informative. It would be easy to say success breeds contempt, and a case could be made that generational winning draws disdain from fan bases who aren’t experiencing it. The long term culture of winning also has proved to produce a level of arrogance amongst fans.

Then you have the label that has served as a target for so many over the years….”Best Fans In Baseball”. More on that momentarily.

The survey found that New York Yankee fans are the most annoying, and also the worst behaved fans in the sport. The Boston Red Sox were 2nd most annoying, followed by Houston Astro fans, LA Dodger fans, Philadelphia Phillies fans were fifth on the list with Cubs fans right behind them. Cardinal fans came in 7th.

Washington Nationals v Chicago Cubs
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As far as behavior goes, after Yankee fans you get Phillies fans (who probably booed that they weren’t tops on the list). Third went to Red Sox fans. Followed by the LA Dodgers fanbase, Houston Astros and Chicago Cubs. The Cardinals fans came in as tenth worst behaved.

Other insights showed that the Astros Jose Altuve was the most annoying player and that former Cardinal manager Tony LaRussa as the most annoying manager, which is interesting considering he hasn’t managed since 2022. And that was with the Chicago White Sox.

Chicago White Sox v Minnesota Twins
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Back to the “BFIB” thing. Originally it was meant to acknowledge St. Louis baseball fans knowledge and appreciation of the game, situational strategies and game decorum. Hall of Fame manager Jim Leyland is reportedly the one to place the label on Cards fans.

Not long after that “BFIB” became a weapon to use anytime a Cardinal fan in any forum spoke ineloquently, or behaved boorishly.  Simultaneously you had fans who took the label to heart and felt that they had to go over the top to prove the label true. Thus, you got standing ovations for most anything, and booing players became forbidden.

Throw in the fact that public address announcer John Ulett welcomes everyone to Busch stadium by stating that they are in “Baseball Heaven”.

Divisional Series - Atlanta Braves v St Louis Cardinals - Game Three
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St. Louis loves the Cardinals. The Cardinal fan base covers a large area of the country well beyond the Missouri borders. Then there is the tradition of success. All of these things invite people to take up a contrarian position when it comes to Cardinal Baseball.

Most annoying fans? Missouri? Can’t go there. Full disclosure- yes, I’m a Cardinal fan.

Wait…Kansas City? Hardly annoying when it comes to baseball. Unless not understanding the nuance and details of the game as annoying, and I guess It can be. I like to see that as an opportunity to talk about the beauty of the game and its layers of strategy to Royals fans. If they don’t want to know I'll usually remind them that Orta was out……#Notover’85 "BFIB"

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