Baseball fandom broken down by zip code and Facebook preference, and my Oakland Athletics lose almost everywhere.

As a Twitter pundit presciently notes, "If you are looking for a wonderful time-waster, you can’t beat this interactive map of baseball fandom."

Up Close on Baseball’s Borders, by Tom Giratikanon, Josh Katz, David Leonhardt and Kevin Quealy (New York Times)

Fans may not list which team they favor on the census, but millions of them do make their preferences public on Facebook. Using aggregated data provided by the company, we were able to create an unprecedented look at the geography of baseball fandom, going down not only to the county level, as Facebook did in a nationwide map it released a few weeks ago, but also to ZIP codes. We can now clearly see that both Hartford and New Haven are in fact Yankee outposts. We can also determine the precise Chicago neighborhoods where White Sox jerseys stop being welcome and the central California town where the Dodgers cede fan favorite status to the Giants.

It comes as little surprise that the Reds come out on top in Floyd County, or that the Yankees have fans all across the country.

Taking the analysis a step deeper, 1117 East Spring Street Neighborhood Association results show a clear split:

TEAM                   PERCENTAGE
Boston Red Sox              50%
Oakland A's                    50%

That's right: the wife is from Maine and the husband yearns for the People's Republic of Berkeley but is marooned in New Albany.

However, this constitutes a far better percentage score for the A's than any of the zip codes in or near Oakland. Similarly, the New York Mets finish second to the Yankees everywhere in New York City. 

And BOOM, a whole half an hour wasted.

Go Astros!