You can find plenty of fans of the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox in Connecticut—but the Yankees are a little more popular this year. That’s the takeaway from Quinnipiac’s 14th annual Connecticut Baseball Poll, released on Thursday. There’s one other finding in the poll: the New York Mets are picking up fans in Connecticut.
The Mets have doubled their support in Connecticut since last year. The poll found 13 percent of baseball fans in Connecticut call themselves Mets fans, compared to 44 percent for the Yankees and 36 percent for the Red Sox.
Doug Schwartz, executive director of the Quinnipiac University Poll, said, “Certainly you could speculate it was the World Series appearance last year by the Mets that may have given them a boost. It could also be because they’re playing well this year.”
But Schwartz says he’s not sure if that’s why. In the past the Red Sox and Yankees didn’t get big boosts when they had good years. Schwartz says, for the most part, Connecticut fans stay loyal to their teams in good times and bad.
“People pretty much pick their team and stick with it. The Yankees, for example, are not playing that great this year, yet we’re seeing one of the biggest leads they’ve had in quite a while.”
Schwartz says, as usual, geography plays the biggest role. The southwestern part of the state is Yankee territory, while northern and eastern Connecticut is a stronghold for Red Sox fans.
