There's a lot you can hate on New York Mets fans for, including their steadfast support for a team that hasn't won a World Series since 1986, and will forever be the Yankees' little stepsister in the Big Apple.
Now, apparently, you can add bad grammar to the list.
Grammarly, a startup that provides grammar-checking software for students and business pros, identified the worst-spelling and -punctuating sports stars for Mashable back in 2013. More recently, it checked on the language mastery of various MLB fanbases, in a study first relayed by The Wall Street Journal.
Mets, Phillies, Astros, Royals and Yankees fans fared most poorly, while fans of the Indians, Padres and White Sox earned spots at the head of the class. Here are the full rankings, reverse-ordered by the average number of spelling, grammar and punctuation mistakes per 100 words for each fan base:
1. New York Mets, 13.9 mistakes per 100 words
2. Philadelphia Phillies, 13.5 mistakes per 100 words
3. Houston Astros, 12.7 mistakes per 100 words
4. Kansas City Royals, 12.4 mistakes per 100 words
5. New York Yankees, 12.1 mistakes per 100 words
6. Detroit Tigers, 11.7 mistakes per 100 words
7. Oakland Athletics, 10.7 mistakes per 100 words
8. Colorado Rockies, 10.3 mistakes per 100 words
9. Atlanta Braves, 10.2 mistakes per 100 words
10. Baltimore Orioles, 9.9 mistakes per 100 words
11. Boston Red Sox, 9.3 mistakes per 100 words
12. Arizona Diamondbacks, 9.2 mistakes per 100 words
13. Toronto Blue Jays, 7.3 mistakes per 100 words
14. St. Louis Cardinals, 7.1 mistakes per 100 words
15. Florida Marlins, 7.0 mistakes per 100 words
16. Los Angeles Dodgers, 6.8 mistakes per 100 words
17. San Francisco Giants, 6.7 mistakes per 100 words
18. Pittsburgh Pirates, 6.3 mistakes per 100 words
19. Texas Rangers, 6.3 mistakes per 100 words
20. Los Angeles Angels, 6.2 mistakes per 100 words
21. Washington Nationals, 5.9 mistakes per 100 words
22. Cincinnati Reds, 5.8 mistakes per 100 words
22. Minnesota Twins, 5.8 mistakes per 100 words
22. Tampa Bay Rays, 5.8 mistakes per 100 words
25. Milwaukee Brewers, 5.3 mistakes per 100 words
26. Chicago Cubs, 5.2 mistakes per 100 words
26. Seattle Mariners, 5.2 mistakes per 100 words
28. Chicago White Sox, 4.8 mistakes per 100 words
29. San Diego Padres, 4.4 mistakes per 100 words
30. Cleveland Indians, 3.6 mistakes per 100 words
To reach its findings, Grammarly said it looked at 150 comments left on each team's website, analyzing an average of more than 10,500 words per fanbase.
Does that make this study's conclusions scientific? Not at all. Does it make them fun? You bet. Just another arrow for your smack-talk quiver, perhaps.