Back at the beginning of the baseball season, we ran a bonus list of the top baseball teams online. At that time, the top five looked like this:
1) New York Yankees
2) St. Louis Cardinals
3) Chicago Cubs
4) Boston Red Sox
5) Atlanta Braves
Now we're nearing the midpoint of the season. And the top baseball teams look like this:
1) Seattle Mariners
2) Chicago Cubs
3) New York Yankees
4) Atanta Braves
5) Boston Red Sox
6) St. Louis Cardinals
Yes, the Seattle Mariners have gone from #7 to #1. See what a great record can do for your popularity?
The Mariners have been the talk of baseball this season. Over the past three years they have lost three of the best players in baseball -- pitcher Randy Johnson, outfielder Ken Griffey Jr., and shortstop Alex Rodriguez. Yet they have won more than 75 percent of their games so far and have ended the American League West race already. They've had the second-best record through 65 games of all-time (behind, I believe, the 1902 Pittsburgh Pirates).
They also have been adopted by an international audience. Last year, they brought aboard Japanese closer Kazuhiru Sasaki. This year, they added the greatest player in Japan, slap-hitting outfielder Ichiro Suzuki. Ichiro, who prefers to go by only his first name, has become the most popular baseball player online, with a regular position in our Sports Top 10.
Searches for baseball teams follow a definite pattern. They rise a bit during spring training and then explode over the week before and after the season starts, doubling or tripling in those two weeks. Then they gradually fall off to the same levels as spring training.
Every team follows this pattern, except for the Mariners. Mariner searches exploded at the beginning of the season, and then instead of falling off, they stayed constant. In fact, they even rose a bit.
Right now, Seattle Mariner searches are in the realm of Janet Jackson and Michael Jordan. Last week the Mariners received twice as many searches as the Yankees.
Both Mariner fans and Yankee fans can get all the latest baseball news from Lycos every day. Assuming Yankee fans are smart enough to use the Internet, that is.
TOMORROW: The new Lycos 50 -- will Tim McVeigh be #1?
