Most Popular Sport In Each City

U.S. cities only, no Canadian cities, because they would all be hockey, except for Hamilton and Regina, which have CFL teams but not NHL teams. Cities/metro areas listed in alphabetical order. 

Baseball: Boston/New England, New York/New Jersey/Long Island, St. Louis, San Diego.

Football: Atlanta, Baltimore, Buffalo/Western New York, Charlotte/Carolina, Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Dallas/Metroplex, Denver, Houston, Indianapolis, Jacksonville/North Florida, Kansas City, Las Vegas, Miami/South Florida, Milwaukee/Green Bay, Minneapolis/Twin Cities, Nashville, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, San Francisco (Bay Area), Seattle, Tampa (Bay), Washington/DMV.

Basketball: Los Angeles, Oklahoma City, Orlando, Portland, Sacramento, Salt Lake City/Utah, San Antonio.

Hockey: Detroit.

Recent titles won don't always change these things. The Phillies may have won 3 recent Pennants and a World Series, but they'll never be more popular in Philadelphia and environs than the Eagles. No matter what they win, the Dodgers will not be more popular in Los Angeles than the Lakers, even though the Dodgers arrived first. If the Lions finish the job and win the Super Bowl, they might overtake the Red Wings in Detroit; but the Pistons didn't despite nearly winning back-to-back titles in 2004-05.

The Athletics' temporary stay in West Sacramento won't make them more popular in California's capital than the Kings. If the Pacers come from behind and beat the Thunder to win the NBA title, it still won't make them more popular in Indianapolis than the Colts. Basketball as a whole may be more loved in Indiana as a whole, but, in Indianapolis, the Colts have taken over.

June 17, 2015: The Charleston Church Massacre

June 17, 2015, 10 years ago: A white supremacist opens fire during a Bible study at a black church in Charleston, South Carolina. It was the deadliest mass shooting at a place of worship in American history.

To make matters worse, that record stood for only 3 years.

Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, known as Mother Emanuel, was founded in 1817. Though not the oldest continuously-operating black church in America -- that would be First Bryan Baptist Church, founded in 1788 in Savannah, Georgia -- it is the oldest AME church in America. In 2015, its pastor was Clementa C. Pinckney, who was also a member of the State Senate.

Dylann Roof, a 21-year-old native of the State capital of Columbia, espoused racial hatred in both a website manifesto which he published before the shooting, and a journal which he wrote from jail afterward. On his website, Roof posted photos of emblems which are associated with white supremacy, including a photo of the Confederate battle flag.

Pinckney had held rallies after the shooting of Walter Scott by a white police officer two months earlier, in nearby North Charleston. As State Senator, Pinckney pushed for legislation requiring police to wear body cameras.

During the hour preceding the attack, 13 people, including the shooter, participated in the Bible study. According to the accounts of people who talked to survivors, when Roof walked into the historic African-American church, he immediately asked for Pinckney, and sat down next to him, initially listening to others during the study. He disagreed with some of the discussion of Scripture.

After other participants began praying, he stood up, and aimed a gun he pulled from a fanny pack at 87-year-old Susie Jackson. Jackson's nephew, 26-year-old Tywanza Sanders, tried to talk him down and asked him why he was attacking churchgoers. The shooter said, "I have to do it. You rape our women, and you're taking over our country. And you have to go." 

In the aftermath, Jamelle Bouie wrote in Slate, "Make any list of anti-black terrorism in the United States, and you'll also have a list of attacks justified by the specter of black rape." He cited the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921, the Rosewood Massacre in Florida in 1923, and the murder of 14-year-old Emmett Till in Mississippi in 1955 as examples.

When Roof said he intended to shoot them all, Sanders dove in front of Jackson and was shot first. Roof fired at the other victims, shouting racial epithets. He reportedly said, "Y'all want something to pray about? I'll give you something to pray about." Roof reloaded his gun five times. Sanders' mother and his five-year-old niece, who also attended the study, survived the shooting by pretending to be dead on the floor. In total, 9 people were killed, and 1 other was injured.

The day after the shooting, President Barack Obama visited Charleston, and said, "Once again, innocent people were killed in part because someone who wanted to inflict harm had no trouble getting their hands on a gun... We as a country will have to reckon with the fact that this type of mass violence does not happen in other advanced countries."

Nothing was done about gun control, of course. But on July 9, the South Carolina legislature passed a bill to remove the Confederate flag from display outside the State House, and Governor Nikki Haley signed the bill. The flag was taken down the next day.

Roof was found to have targeted members of this church because of its history and status. On December 15, 2016, Roof was convicted of 33 federal hate crime and murder charges. On January 10, 2017, he was sentenced to death. He was separately charged with nine counts of murder in State court. He pleaded guilty to all nine state charges in order to avoid receiving a second death sentence, and as a result, he was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.

As of June 17, 2025, he remains in United States Penitentiary Terre Haute in Indiana. Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh was executed there in 2001. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the surviving bomber of the 2013 Boston Marathon, is also there. So is Robert Bowers, who broke Roof's record with 11 shooting deaths at a Pittsburgh synagogue in 2018, joined him on Death Row at Terre Haute in 2023.

June 17, 1775: The Battle of Bunker Hill

Bunker Hill Monument

June 17, 1775. 250 years ago: The Battle of Bunker Hill is fought, the 1st battle of the War of the American Revolution after the opening battles of Lexington and Concord. It is remembered as a great heroic triumph for the American Patriots.

In fact, it was a case of "They lost the battle, but won the war." Or, as the ancient Greek King Pyrrhus of Epirus would have said, "If we are successful in one more battle with them, we shall be utterly ruined."

The battle isn't even correctly named. Although there is a Bunker Hill in Charlestown, across the Charles River from Boston and since incorporated as a neighborhood of the city proper, most of the action took place at adjacent Breed's Hill, a mile and a half from what's now known as Downtown Crossing.

On June 13, Colonel William Prescott took 1,200 colonial troops, and occupied both hills. On June 17, the British troops, under the command of General William Howe, became aware of the presence of colonial forces on the Peninsula, and mounted an attack against them. Two assaults on the colonial positions were repulsed with significant British casualties, but the redoubt was captured on their third assault, after the defenders ran out of ammunition. The colonists retreated over Bunker Hill, leaving the British in control of the Peninsula.

William Prescott

The battle was a tactical victory for the British, but it proved to be a sobering experience for them: They lost 226 men, while the colonials lost 115. The battle had demonstrated that inexperienced militia were able to stand up to regular army troops in battle.

The battle led the British to adopt a more cautious planning and maneuver execution in future engagements, which was evident in the subsequent New York and New Jersey campaign. The costly engagement also convinced the British of the need to hire substantial numbers of auxiliaries from the German province of Hesse -- the infamous Hessian mercenaries -- to bolster their strength in the face of the new and formidable Continental Army.

William Prescott served as part of the U.S. victory at the Battle of Saratoga in 1777. He lived on until 1795, at the age of 69. He has a statue on the grounds of the 221-foot-high Bunker Hill Monument, erected in 1843.

The colonials lost the battle because they ran out of ammunition. This supposedly led to the ammo-conserving order: "Don't shoot 'til you see the whites of their eyes!" But the available evidence shows that no one -- not Prescott, nor anyone else -- said this during the Battle of Bunker Hill. The saying goes back to Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden in the early 17th Century, at that country's peak of power.

June 16, 1965: Bob Dylan Records "Like a Rolling Stone"

June 16, 1965: A planned anti-war protest at The Pentagon becomes a "teach-in," with demonstrators distributing 50,000 leaflets in and around the building.

On the same day, Bob Dylan records the familiar version of "Like a Rolling Stone," at Studio A at Columbia Records, at 799 7th Avenue at 52nd Street in New York. He does not one take like the legend says, but 15 takes, in addition to one done the day before. The 4th take is the one we all know.

He had already written and recorded these songs: "Blowin' in the Wind," "Masters of War," "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall," "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right," "The Times They Are a-Changin'," "With God On Our Side," "When the Ship Comes In," "My Back Pages," "Subterranean Homesick Blues," "Maggie's Farm," "Mr. Tambourine Man," "It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)" and "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue." All of those were done before his 24th birthday, on May 24, 1965. Now, he had written and recorded "Like a Rolling Stone."

Like some of Bob's other songs from around the same time -- especially "Maggie's Farm" and "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue," and the subsequent "Ballad of a Thin Man" -- it was a message to the people who were upset with him for "going electric," seemingly "betraying folk music" and its "movement." They never understood that he was a rocker at heart, loving Elvis Presley and Little Richard as much as he did Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger.

In spite of being a full 6 minutes long, the song reached Number 2 on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 chart. Keeping it out of the Number 1 slot: "I Got You Babe" by Sonny & Cher. Cher made it up to Bob by making his song "All I Really Want to Do" her 1st solo hit single.

In 1967, the magazine Rolling Stone was founded, named for this song. The band The Rolling Stones was named after the Muddy Waters song "Rollin' Stone," which Dylan may have named his song after. There was, of course, the previous proverb: "A rolling stone gathers no moss."

In 2004, Rolling Stone put "Like a Rolling Stone" at Number 1 on their list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. They occasionally revive the list. In 2010, they kept it at Number 1. In 2021, they put it at Number 4, behind Aretha Franklin's version of Otis Redding's "Respect," Public Enemy's "Fight the Power," and Sam Cooke's "A Change Is Gonna Come."

Bass guitarist Joe Macho (who also recorded under the name Joe Mack) died in 1977, producer Tom Wilson in 1978, guitarist Mike Bloomfield in 1981, pianist Paul Griffin in 2000, drummer Bobby Gregg in 2014, guitarist and tambourine player Bruce Langhorne in 2017, and pianist Frank Owens in 2023.

The other musicians on this recording are still alive: Organist Al Kooper, guitarist Al Gorgoni, and, of course, guitarist, harmonica player and singer Bob Dylan. There were no backup singers.

Bad Luck for the Yankees? No, Bad Performance From Them

Sports people, especially baseball people, tend to be superstitious. Hence, Boston Red Sox fans believed, even when they said they didn't, in "The Curse of the Bambino," until they finally killed it with steroids in 2004.

Well, this past Friday was the start of a series between the Yankees and the Red Sox at Fenway Park, and also a Friday the 13th. Did I expect a start of bad luck for the Yankees? No.

And they didn't get it. It wasn't bad luck at all. It was bad performance.

Not from the pitching, for the most part. On Friday night, Ryan Yarbrough and 3 relievers allowed 2 runs on 6 hits and 2 walks. On Saturday night, Carlos Rodón allowed 4 runs in 6 innings, though only 2 over the 1st 4. And last night, Max Fried allowed 2 runs on 6 hits and 2 walks, with 9 strikeouts, over 7 innings.

Results: Red Sox 2, Yankees 1; Red Sox 4, Yankees 3; Red Sox 2, Yankees 0. On aggregate -- not that baseball does it this way, but I think it's worth reporting -- Red Sox 8, Yankees 4.

These were the stats on the series for the Yankee players in this Yankees. Read 'em and weep:

* Anthony Volpe, 3-for-11, 1 walk, 1 RBI.

* Jasson Domínguez, 2-for-11, 1 RBI.

* Paul Goldschmidt, 2-for-8, 1 walk.

* Trent Grisham, 2-for-8.

* Jazz Chisholm, 1-for-6, 2 walks.

* Austin Wells, 1-for-7, 1 RBI.

* Cody Bellinger, 1-for-7, 1 walk.

* DJ LeMahieu, 1-for-8.

* Ben Rice, 1-for-11.

* Aaron Judge, 1-for-12, 1 RBI, 9 strikeouts.

* J.C. Escarra, 0-for-2, 1 walk.

* Oswald Peraza, 0-for-4, 1 walk.

* Pablo Reyes, played in field, did not bat.

Total: 15-for-93, a batting average of .161; 7 walks, for an on-base percentage of .220; 4 runs.

With a lineup like that, in Fenway Park, against the current Red Sox, especially their bullpen, this is like Led Zeppelin going to New Orleans for Mardi Gras, and leaving on Ash Wednesday totally sober and with not one new notch on their combined bedposts.

In the 9th inning yesterday, Michael Kay noted that the fewest runs the Yankees had ever scored in a 3-game series at Fenway Park was 4, having done so in 1916 and 1922. Now, they had done it again. It didn't occur to me until this morning that this could have been an instance of "The Curse of Kay": Every time Kay announces an overwhelming stat, the opposite occurs. You know: A batter who's 3-for-his-last-34 hits a home run, a pitcher averaging fewer than 2 walks per game walks a batter, a player who hasn't committed an error all season commits one, and so on. But that didn't happen.

Rafael Devers hit another home run against the Yankees yesterday. And then, the Red Sox traded him to the San Francisco Giants, for 4 guys I never heard of, 1 of whom hasn't yet reached the major leagues. Maybe they thought June 15 was still the trading deadline (it was moved to July 31 in 1986), and saw that they were struggling at about .500 the whole season thus far, and got desperate, trading their best player for a package of multiple players that could help them in the near future.

*

Anyway, after this embarrassment -- and it would have been embarrassing even if it were not against our greatest rivals -- the Yankees still lead the American League Eastern Division by 3 1/2 games over the Tampa Bay Rays, 4 1/2 over the Toronto Blue Jays, 6 1/2 over the Red Sox (meaning they were 9 1/2 back before the series began), and 12 over the Baltimore Orioles.

Would the addition of another big bat help? Maybe: Giancarlo Stanton has been activated from the Injured List, and is set to make his season debut in tonight's series opener at Yankee Stadium II, against the Los Angeles Angels. Hopefully, he will provide both production and protection for the other hitters.

June 14, 1775: The Birth of the United States Army

June 14, 1775, 250 years ago: Meeting in Philadelphia, at what will later be called Independence Hall, the Second Continental Congress approves a resolution to establish the Continental Army, to provide for the common defense of the 13 colonies that are, at the time, together known as British America. This is considered the birthdate of the United States Army.

It incorporates patriot forces already in place outside Boston, 22,000 of them; and New York, 5,000 of them. It also raises the 1st 10 companies of Continental Army troops on a one-year enlistment, including riflemen from the Province of Pennsylvania, the Province of Maryland, and the Colony of Virginia.

The following day, June 15, upon the suggestion of Massachusetts delegate John Adams, Virginia delegate George Washington, who had risen to the rank of Colonel in the British Army during the French and Indian War of 1755-1763, was unanimously elected to be the commander-in-chief of the Continental Army.

On June 3, 1784, after the War of the American Revolution, despite great difficulties, was won, the Congress of the Confederation created the United States Army, to replace the disbanded Continental Army. The U.S. Army would, and continues to, consider itself a continuation of the Continental Army.

In 1787, Independence Hall would again host delegates, meeting in a Constitutional Convention. They approved the Constitution of the United States, created the office of the President of the United States, and used the same language to describe the President's role in running the nation's armed forces: "Commander-in-chief."

The U.S. Army has had many great moments, including, but by no means limited to, the following:

* War of the American Revolution, 1775-1783: The Battles of Trenton, Saratoga, Monmouth Courthouse and Yorktown.

* War of 1812, 1812-1815: The Battles of Baltimore and New Orleans.

* Mexican-American War, 1846-1848: The Battles of Monterrey, Buena Vista and Chapultepec.

* American Civil War, 1861-1865: The Battles of Vicksburg, Gettysburg and Richmond, General William Tecumseh Sherman's March to the Sea, and the surrender of Robert E. Lee achieved by General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House.

* Spanish-American War, 1898: The Battle of San Juan Hill.

* World War I, 1917 and 1918: The Battles of St-Mihiel and the Argonne Forest.

* World War II, 1941-1945: The amphibious invasions of North Africa, Italy and France, and the accompanying liberations thereof; and the "island-hopping" campaign in the Pacific.

* Korean War, 1950-1953: The amphibious landing at Incheon, saving the country, before the war dragged into a nearly three-year stalemate.

* Persian Gulf War, 1991: Rolling back the conquest of Kuwait by Iraq in a month and a half.

* Balkan Campaigns, 1995 and 1999: Removing Serbia from control of Bosnia in the former and Kosovo in the latter.

* Iraq War, 2003-2011: Removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq in a matter of months.

Unfortunately, that wasn't the end of the war. Like each of the preceding, and also the Vietnam War of 1959-1975, the Army has also had moments we'd like to forget, but dare not forget.

Of the 44 men who have served as President, 15 have served in the Army: George Washington, Andrew Jackson, William Henry Harrison, Zachary Taylor, Franklin Pierce, Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, Rutherford B. Hayes, James Garfield, Benjamin Harrison, William McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan.

Both of my grandfathers served in the Army: One in Alaska, the other with General George S. Patton in the North African and Italian campaigns. My father also served, in Korea during the Vietnam War. None saw combat. Due to my congenital arthritis, I would never have passed a military physical examination; and so, if the military draft had been restored at the time when I would have been eligible, I would have been classified "4-F": Ineligible for service.

Today, a President who lied about his physical condition to get out of serving will hold a military parade in the national capital of Washington, D.C., in celebration of his birthday (his 79th), and also of the Army's (its 250th).

I hope it rains.

June 13, 1995: Alanis Morissette Releases "Jagged Little Pill"

June 13, 1995, 30 years ago: Alanis Morissette releases her album Jagged Little Pill. It makes her the most influential musical performer of the 1990s.

Stop laughing. She was the one. Not Kurt Cobain, or his band Nirvana as a whole.

I might have said 4 Non Blondes, Linda Perry's then-band, but if you can think of a song of theirs other than "What's Up?" (a.k.a. "What's Going On"), then you know more about them than I do.

By the time Alanis came out with Jagged Little Pill, not only was Cobain dead, but Nirvana's grunge aesthetic was buried as well. Dave Grohl went on to form Foo Fighters, who sound very different. Pearl Jam moved away from that style as well.

Without Alanis, there's no Pink, no Kesha, no Ariana Grande, no Halsey. Christina Aguilera doesn't do Stripped. Taylor Swift probably remains a country singer.

Her lyrics and attitude influenced black women, too: Without Alanis, we might still have had Beyoncé, Ashanti, Nicki Minaj and Cardi B, but they would have sounded very different. I'll bet you any money you like: If Alanis had gone into another line of work, Beyoncé would never have sung "If I Were a Boy."

Did Alanis influence guys, too? Yes: Without Alanis, we might have had a very different Eminem.

The native of Ottawa caught flak for apparently not understanding the meaning of the word "Ironic," the title of one of the songs on the album. But "You Oughta Know" was a scathing indictment of an ex-boyfriend, rumored to be Full House star Dave Coulier. And while it was never actually released as a single in the U.S., "Hand in My Pocket" became an inescapable song in the Autumn of 1995.

So what it all came down to was that, having just turned 21, she really did have a lot figured out. To put this in perspective: Elvis Presley was 21 when he hit it big nationally, but never wrote a song; Paul McCartney and Brian Wilson were both 21 when their bands first hit it big; Bob Dylan was 22 when his 2nd album made him a legend; Michael Jackson was 21 when he released Off the Wall, but 24 when he released Thriller; Joni Mitchell, the previous standard for a Canadian woman writing her own songs, was 24 when she released "Both Sides Now"; and Cobain was 24 when Nirvana released Nevermind.

Alanis has never hit such heights again, but she remains a solid songwriter.