You don't have to know your way around a map to be a Yankees fan, but it could save your fellow Bronx Bomber supporters some embarrassment if you knew at least a little geography.
Yankees fans falsely believe that Boston's Fenway Park is closer to the Big Apple than Baltimore's Camden Yards, according to a new study. Researchers used the military cliche "Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer," in describing Pinstripe fans' directional faux pas, according to nonprofit Futurity.org
Fans of both the Yankees and those that weren't supporters of the team were interviewed by New York University researchers outside the Bronx ballpark back in 2010. At the time, the Yankees were in first, Red Sox second and Orioles dead last in the AL East.
After crunching the data, the scientists' hypothesis was proven accurate. Non-Yankees fans correctly estimated that Fenway Park was slightly farther than Camden Yards; by comparison, Yankees fans felt Fenway Park was closer than Camden Yards.
As a result, the study’s co-authors, Jenny Xiao, a doctoral candidate, and Jay Van Bavel, an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology, found the geography blunder was a direct result of being a Yankees fan or not.
-- Follow Ben Maller on Twitter @BenMaller.
