This is either the product of idle minds or something a little more brilliant than that, but I have a friend who has come up with something called the Fan Suffering Index. He is reluctant to give his name because much of the work on this subject has been done … well, at work. When he’s supposed to work on things other than figuring out how much it kills him to have rooted for the Mets, Jets, Islanders and Knicks in his lifetime.
Anyway, it is a simple formula. And it works in ways you wouldn’t believe.
Here it is:
Take an amount of time — for the purpose of this we’ll say 35 years, going back to 1977 (with the exception of the Devils, who first played here in 1982, so their number will be 29).
Add 10 for every championship (NC, for our purposes).
Add 5 for every time the team has been a runner-up (RU).
Add two for every playoff appearance (PA).
Take the number of losing seasons, multiply by three, then subtract. (LS)
And there you have it. It’s pretty clear that the winner (or loser, depending on how much you want to invert the world) are the Yankees, even without taking your calculator out of the drawer. So we’ll start there:
Years: 35. NC: 7 x 10. RU: 3 x 5. PA: 19 x 2. LS: 4 x 3.
So you add 35 and 70 (105), add 15 (120), add 38 (158), subtract 12 and what you have is the Yankees’ fan suffering index (FSI) of 146, and trust me, if you didn’t realize just how good you have it as a Yankees fan, you’re about to.
I had my friend do the math and I had his wife double-check his figures so we could see where our nine franchises reside on the Spectrum of Misery (SOM) — because though it’s true that guns don’t kill people, people kill people, I’ve been known to maim entire rooms of people while doing arithmetic. I consider that a public service.
So, without further ado, the FSI of the SOM:
1. Mets — NC: 1. RU: 1. PA: 5. LS: 19. Total: 3.
2. Nets — NC: 0. RU: 2. PA: 16. LS: 22. Total: 11
3. Jets — NC: 0. RU: 0. PA: 12. LS: 14. Total: 17.
4. Knicks — NC: 0. RU: 2. PA: 21. LS: 17. Total: 36
5. Rangers — NC: 1. RU: 1. PA: 24. LS: 15. Total: 53
6. Islanders — NC: 4. RU: 1. PA: 18. LS: 17. Total: 65
7. Giants — NC: 4. RU: 1. PA: 14. LS: 14. Total: 66
8. Devils — NC: 3. RU: 1. PA: 21. LS: 8. Total: 82
9. Yankees — NC: 7. RU: 3. PA: 19. LS: 4. Total: 146.
And a couple of things jump out at you:
* This is about as drop-dead accurate as any formula you could ever dream up. Tell me where you can find argument with that?
* If you root for the Mets/Nets/Jets and you always have thought you had it especially rough … you were right.
* This will come as no surprise to Islanders fans, but if you make this across just the last 25 years, you are a first-place team! Congratulations!
* These are one set of standings in which the Yankees will finish in last place every year and be delighted.
Whack Back at Vac
Bob Scotti: Can someone explain how Russell Martin has escaped the wrath of New York? He’s not exactly Johnny Bench behind the plate. Since June of last year, he’s hitting under .200, including .176 in the playoffs. Tino Martinez was booed for a slow start when he replaced Don Mattingly. Same thing with Jason Giambi when he replaced Tino. How has Martin flown under the radar after replacing Jorge Posada?
Vac: I think it shows you how hard it is to be too terribly angry about anything or anyone from Canada, no?
@donstohrerjr: A Jose Reyes tribute is like the pathetic guy who buys birthday gifts for the chick who dumped him. The Wilpon Mets: too little too late.
@MikeVacc: And the ovation he’ll get is like all of pathetic guy’s buddies standing and cheering when they see her at the bar.
John Bluemke: Another thing fans should take note of when it comes to saluting Chipper Jones: Remember his post-9/11 comments. He’s one of the good guys, and he always played the game the right way. And this is from a die-hard Mets fan who has been chanting “Larry” for the past 15 years!
Vac: Mets fans won’t — and shouldn’t — miss Chipper when he goes. But it should be OK to salute a great player without having your loyalty called into question.
William Gotimer: One noisy event you left out but was certainly up there was War Emblem trying for the Triple Crown in the Belmont Stakes in 2002. I have been to all of them but the sheer wall of noise that day and the swaying of the grandstand with more than 104,000 people was other-worldly. It was something that was exhilarating and last for 2 1/2 minutes growing louder and louder.
Vac: I’ve been to a couple of Belmonts hoping to see a horse pull off a Triple Crown because I’ve long been told there’s nothing to compare to that. And am hoping to see that in person some time soon.
Vac’s Whacks
Does it make me a baseball heretic that I liked the road Highlanders unis the Yankees wore at Fenway on Friday, and wouldn’t mind seeing them again before another hundred years pass?
* Signs you can tell it’s not as much a hockey town as it is a baseball town just yet: If the Yankees had blown a 3-0 lead on a Tuesday and the Mets a 2-0 lead on a Wednesday — in mid-May — it might have caused a bigger panic than what the local icers did this week.
* Have there been five better supporting characters on TV the last 25 years than Roger Sterling, as played by John Slattery on “Mad Men”?
* I don’t think it was the smartest play in the books when Bobby Valentine called out Kevin Youkilis the other day. But you know something? If the Sox liked life under Terry Francona so much they might have wanted to break a sweat for him a little more than they did last September.