Excellent topic.

About the wrasslin’ I grew up as a fan of the WWF being a Yankee. I don’t know that the feuds were any shorter in the 80′s than in the south, but then again I can’t make the direct comparison. The only thing I ever noticed about the WWF was that Vince loved his big guys. So the smaller wrestler didn’t get the same opportunity as a less athletic giant. I’d also disagree that the code of honor exists only in the south. Frankly, I’ve always viewed the south as “Nice to your face, but talks behind your back” while my northern brethren we’re “F you to your face” but “had your back in a crisis.” Just look at New Yorkers whenever there is a major disaster, they band together like no others.

You’re regional points are great though. I remember having different wiffle ball rules between different neighborhoods. My cousins played “pitcher’s hand” differently than we did in my neighborhood on the other side of town. That led to plenty of arguments between 9 year olds about how stupid it was that pitcher’s hand applied to anything other than first base since you can’t tag out 3 guys at once. (See, I’m riled up already about that… OUR rule was the superior rule.)

I think if you take a look at the history of the Negro league you’ll find one where the players had to be faster and better than their white counterparts. I know that was the attitude of managers when the color barrier was broken. A black man had to be an All-Star, a white guy could get a couple of chances.

In regards to the big changes to the game though, I think free agency changed a lot of the “regionalism” that I didn’t have the opportunity to grow up with prior to the 1980′s. A team’s own guys won’t tip off their own pitchers if the pitchers have a tell, for fear that they might have to face the guy somewhere down the road. How counterproductive is that!? So if anything, the constant movement took what would have been a regional philosophy out of the regional and spread it around all of baseball.