the buzz log
Baseball Card Bonanza?
Attempting to discern the value of those Barry Bonds baseball cards tucked away in a forgotten shoebox, curious collectors turned to the Search box. Queries on "baseball cards" eked out a modest 10% gain this week, but the little slabs of cardboard accounted for a slew of related searches.
Bonds' record achievement spurred a whole pack of intriguing queries. We noted large spikes on "baseball card stores" (+223%), "topps baseball cards" (+164%), and "free baseball card value guide" (+136%) over the past seven days. Figuring out if cards were commons or collectibles was of utmost importance—as indicated by lookups on "baseball cards values," "beckett baseball," and "baseball card price guide."
Far be it from us to burst your stale bubblegum, but we recently read that most cards produced in the '80s and '90s are worthless. Maybe those "barry bonds baseball cards" will be worth something someday—but don't count on them to put you through college.
Filed under: Baseball, Collectibles
Bonds Buzz Not So Big
Searches on Barry Bonds jumped by 51% after the beleaguered basher tied the all-time home run mark with his 755th blast. Even so, the momentum wasn't enough to lift the buff slugger into our top 10 sports searches. Perhaps his prickly personality is the reason for the reticence, but whatever the case, more folks searched on Formula One and the X Games over the weekend than the presumptive home run king.
The ongoing slog toward immortality (or infamy?) has been tarnished by the taint of performance enhancing chatter, but searches perked up a bit when the burly slugger finally crushed the record-tying homer. Queries on "barry bonds 755 home run" (+160%), "barry bonds career stats" (+75%), and "barry bonds rookie card" (+63%) all rounded the bags of Buzz. But those searchers were counter-balanced by lookups on "barry bonds steroids" and "barry bonds before and after."
Bonds' run for the record has resulted in one positive—revived Buzz on Hammerin' Hank Aaron. The legendary Braves slugger who's held the home run title for over thirty years has been the subject of intense search interest. Queries on Aaron jumped 81% after Bonds tied his mark and related searches on "hank aaron stats," "hank aaron home run record," and "henry aaron."
Filed under: Sports, Baseball, Barry Bonds, MLB, Baseball Players
Drama in the Bronx
Baseball in the Bronx always adds up to Buzz. The New York Yankees are always among the top sports searches and lead the way in baseball Buzz. Thanks to a national following, the exploits of the Bronx Bombers are always ripe for Web chatter.
Searches on the Yankees surged 15% as gossip swirled around the squad. With injuries and ineffectiveness plauging the pitching, the team has fallen behind the Boston Red Sox in the standings and in Search...
The graph above shows the fates of the two rivals since opening day. With the Yankees off to a slow start, the fate of manager Joe Torre is in question. Searches on the embattled skipper have doubled as calls for his ouster circulate.
Yankees slugger Jason Giambi has also made waves in Search. His half-hearted admission of steroid usage reportedly had the Yanks checking to see if they could void his massive contract. Searches on the pinstriped power hitter are up 75% while the trade winds blow.
As for the supposed savior of the pitching staff, searches on Roger Clemens are down 63% this week as he preps for his 2007 debut. We're sure Buzz on Clemens will warm back up as he makes his way out of the minors. But will the Rocket be enough to get the Yanks into the postseason? We shall see...
Females Hate Fantasy
It's time to discuss one of our most divisive topics. No, not the continued presence of Sanjaya on "American Idol." We're here to discuss something that women have absolutely no interest in. The dreaded topic of fantasy baseball.
Rarely do we see such a wide disparity in male/female searches, but in the case of fantasy baseball we're not surprised. Few females understand the allure of acting like a baseball general manager. Only 7% of queries on "fantasy baseball" come from women, and even that sounds a little high.
We can't think of any topics with a such a dramatic Search imbalance favoring ladies—even soaps such as "General Hospital" earn a more reasonable 75/25 gender split.
Where are these dudes who passionate play fantasy baseball? According to searches, predominately in the Northeast. The three top metros for fantasy searches are all in Massachusetts: New Bedford, Boston, and Springfield. Upstate New York rounds out our top five with strong interest in Albany and Binghamton.
We slogged through our own draft and picked the top ten fantasy searches over the last week. Play ball...
Filed under: Baseball, Fantasy Sports
World Series Smackdown
The World Series is finally set. After dispatching the New York Mets in a seven-game NLCS, the Cardinals flew to Detroit for a date with a well-rested Tigers squad. Prognosticators are picking the Tigers to pluck the Cardinals in short order, but remember the Mets were also favored to beat the boys from St. Louis.
We were curious who'd win when we matched the teams up in Buzz. Turns out the Tigers are also favored by searchers, but we went deeper into the data to uncover some interesting match-ups between baseball's final two teams...
| World Series Searches | |||
| Detroit Tigers | St. Louis Cardinals | Advantage... | |
| Most Popular Player in Search | Magglio Ordonez | Albert Pujols | Cardinals. Pujols is hurting, but he's the likely NL MVP. |
| Team Rank in Searches | Top 400 searches | Top 1000 searches | Tigers. Their run to the World Series has captured more Buzz. |
| Female Fan Factor | 42% of searches from women | 46% of searches from women | Cardinals. The Redbirds hit a home run with the ladies. |
| Oddest Team Search | Mesh Detroit Tigers Jersey | St. Louis Cardinals Pool Balls | Tigers. We should all take a lesson from the International Male catalog and incorporate more mesh into our daily wardrobe. |
| Popular Related Searches | Detroit Tigers Tickets, Detroit Tigers Apparel, and Detroit Tigers Logo | St. Louis Cardinals Wallpaper, St. Louis Cardinals Merchandise, and St. Louis Cardinals Schedule | Push. Both teams are attracting tons of related searches. |
| Searches on Team Logo Thongs in Past Week | Detroit Tigers Thong, 6 | St. Louis Cardinals Thong, 5 | Tigers. By an extremely skimpy margin. |
| The Managers | Jim Leyland | Tony LaRussa | Tigers. Leyland notches about four times as many searches as his best bud LaRussa. |
top movers
| Rank | Subject | 1-Day Move |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ford 400 | Breakout! |
| 2 | Indonesia Ferry | Breakout! |
| 3 | Jordan Chandler | 3481% |
| 4 | Evan Chandler | 2322% |
| 5 | American Music Awards | 1841% |
| 6 | John F. Kennedy | 1529% |
| 7 | Turkey Stuffing Recipes | 1361% |
| 8 | Liam Hemsworth | 1172% |
| 9 | Lou Dobbs | 1142% |
| 10 | Hendrick Motorsports | 888% |
top leaders
| Rank | Subject | Move | Score |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Black Friday | +340 | 1290 |
| 2 | NFL | +489 | 670 |
| 3 | Jennifer Lopez | +451 | 515 |
| 4 | New Moon | -67 | 250 |
| 5 | American Music Awards | +236 | 249 |
| 6 | UFC | -36 | 239 |
| 7 | Miley Cyrus | +66 | 169 |
| 8 | Hulu | -11 | 154 |
what's the buzz?
A subject's buzz score is the percentage of Yahoo! users searching for that subject on a given day, multiplied by a constant to make the number easier to read. Weekly leaders are the subjects with the greatest average buzz score for a given week.
For more detailed information, visit our FAQ.