The New York Times recently released a map detailing lay of the land as far as baseball fandoms are concerned. The interactive map was created by using public information provided by Facebook, allowing viewers to find data on any zip code in America. The map shows heavy concentrations of fans, as well as the country’s more contested areas, including the Paul Molitor Line, where the Brewers and Twins fandoms meet. The line is named after Paul Molitor, a Hall of Famer from St. Paul who played with the Brewers for most of his career, before finishing it with the Twins. What’s interesting about this line is that it cuts through the western part of the state. This means that fans just west of Menomonie lean more heavily in favor of the Twins. Is Minnesota slowly taking over Wisconsin, jealous of our cheese perhaps? Or is this the fallout of the pre-cable era, when TV airwaves for western Wisconsinites would have come from the Twin Cities? Or perhaps (as it is for me, a casual Twins fan) there are many Minnesota natives living in the western part of the state. We may never actually know, but it doesn’t matter too much. As the New York Times points out, the two teams rarely play each other nowadays, so there isn’t a large rivalry. If this were a football map however, it would be a completely different ballpark. Anyway, go play with the map!