AL East: Yankees, Red Sox, Rays, Other

Over the weekend, The Worldwide Leader In Sports put it up to a vote:

Which team will win the AL East?

Five teams in the division, therefore five voting options. Or so you’d think. Instead, and please click to embiggen:

Yep, only four options:

Yankees
Red Sox
Rays
Other

Other? Other.

According to ESPN, the Baltimore Orioles and Toronto Blue Jays barely exist. They certainly don’t matter. Now, I know the Orioles are half a team in a good year, but, as a supporter of the Blue Jays, I took this one personally. Where’s the love?

Actually, I wasn’t looking for love from ESPN. I was looking for acknowledgement. Some respect. The Blue Jays won 85 games last year; four fewer than the Red Sox. And if I can be brutally honest: No fan wants his or her team lumped in a group of two with the Orioles.

My emails and phone calls in protest to the highest levels of ESPN got the job done. The laziest of polls, I can no longer find it over at ESPN.com’s SportsNation. I like to think it’s been erased from the Internet forever, and that the person in charge of creating it is, as I requested, out of a job. Other? We won’t stand for Other in Canada.

One more thing (embiggen!):

As of early Saturday morning, other than New York State and Wyoming, and tiny Connecticut*, the American people had spoken: Red Sox.

New York State I understand. Wyoming, not so much. What’s the deal, Wyomingites?

*Oops.