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What Do All The 2008 Playoff Teams Have In Common? A LONG History Of Losing.
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The nine teams facing postseason play this season have combined for a total of 23 World Series wins (plus one more this October) and 61,922 losses (plus one more tonight when the Twins and White Sox figure out who wants to earn the right to lose to the Rays).
There's a lot of history in these nine franchises and truth be told, a LOT of that history is dreadful. 6 of the 9 teams can trace their beginings back to the days of the first World Series in 1903 (White Sox, Red Sox, Twins) or even before then (Cubs, Phillies, Dodgers). Only the Angels, Brewers and Rays are from the "expansion era", post 1960.
While a few of these teams have enjoyed recent success - Angels, White Sox and Red Sox have all won World Series titles this decade - there is still a plethora of suffering and dismay intertwining these franchises.
American League
The A.L. has home field advantage again in the World Series thanks to their recent dominance in the All-Star game having not lost the last 12 Midsummer classics. But even the American League has a long history of losing - from 1963 to 1982, the National League won all but one of those All-Star games (1971).
Tampa Bay Rays
"The Worst Franchise in Sports", "The Clippers of Baseball", "The Stink Rays".
In reality, of all the teams in the playoffs, the Rays have the SHORTEST history of losing... they also have the shortest history. Since they exorcized the "Devil" from their name, they have only had a history of tremendous success!
For their first ten seasons they failed to win more than 70 games in a season and they changed that this season with a 31 win improvement over last season finishing at 97-65. The Rays were last in A.L. attendance for each of the past seven seasons until this year when they averaged over 20,000 fans (22,370) for the first time since their inaugural 1998 season (30,942) which despite the public perception has more to do with the location of their home park - practically on an island in St. Petersburg - than the condition of it.
Oddly enough, Tropicana Field was originally built in 1989 to seduce an existing MLB franchise to move there - first the White Sox, then the Giants - and that fiasco was the basic foundation for the sports-cult movie classic Major League. The White Sox and Giants both used Tropicana as leverage to get new parks built in their existing cities and MLB expanded once more and slapped a new franchise there - but made the mistake of allowing them to have a rhyming name and dreadful color scheme.
Ten years is relatively short time to make it to a franchise's first playoff appearance. The New York Yankees went 20 seasons in the A.L. before winning their first pennant. The St. Louis Cardinals took 35 years in the N.L. before they won a pennant. The Pirates went their first 19 seasons before capturing a pennant. The Mariners went 18 seasons before winning a division crown. Even the Expos went 13 seasons before they won their division - and haven't been back since. The Original Senators (now the Twins) went 24 seasons before they played in the postseason. The New Senators/Rangers went 36 seasons before seeing a division flag. The Florida Marlins, despite two World Series trophies still haven't won their division...
Ten years is nothing.
Rays' manager Joe Maddon worked for the Angels organization for 31 years and served as the bench coach when the Angels when they finally won their first World Series in 2002, so he knows how to overcome "adversity"... keep reading.
Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim
So much has been made out of the "curses" of the Cubs and Red Sox that no one seems to remember the Angels were truly cursed worse than both franchises combined! Maybe the Angels didn't suffer as long as those other teams, but they certainly suffered worse.
First there was the theory that Anaheim Stadium was built on Indian burial grounds - which was never proven nor disproven. And it certainly explains why the Los Angeles Rams had their issues there, too.
In 1982 the Angels became the first MLB team to lose a five game playoff series in which they had a 2-0 lead. They were up 3-1 on the Red Sox in the ALCS in 1986, leading 5-2 in the ninth inning and lost the series. Six times in the 80's all the Angels had to do was win a game and they would have advanced to the World Series and they lost all six. Then there was the "Collapse" in 1995 when the Angels choked away an 11 game division lead only to lose a one game playoff with the Mariners 9-1.
There was Lyman Bostock's murder, Donnie Moore's suicide. Three players were killed in separate car accidents between 1972 and 1977. There was rookie pitcher Dick Wantz who died of a brain tumor in 1965 at age 25. A bus crash that seriously injured Manager Buck Rodgers (ironically giving Joe Maddon his first chance to manage a MLB team)...
The Angels waited 42 years before they even won a postseason SERIES!
Boston Red Sox
Sure, they're the defending World Series champs and have won two titles in the last four years but can you say "86" or "Curse of the Bambino" and NOT think about the days when Bostonians feared they would die without tasting the Ultimate Victory?
The Red Sox are losers through and through... first, no matter what the current fan base thinks, the Sawx are always going to be the Yankees personal beotches. It looks like they are trying to be the Rays' beotches too!
Here, I'll say it... Bucky Dent. Aaron Boone. Bill Buckner. Grady Little. Wade Boggs' horse. Coco Crisp...
No one needs to compare Ted Williams' and Carl Yastrzemski's ringless fingers to know the Red Sox had some extended dry spells. From 1919 to 1945 the Red Sox were second division finishers 19 times...
Between 1920 and 2003, the Yankees finished above the Red Sox 66 times leading to one description of their rivalry "like the rivalry between a hammer and a nail".
In 1946, 1967, 1975 and 1986 - each time the Red Sox played in a World Series during their 86 year championship drought, they played seven games and walked away losers.
Minnesota Twins
Before they moved to Minneapolis they were the Washington Senators where the motto was "Washington, first in politics, last in the American League". Then Clark Griffith moved his Senators to Minny and then proceeded to make incredibly dumb (racist) remarks about why he moved from Washington, which caused his best (black) players to flee the "plantation".
Furthermore, the Twins were poster children for the imbalance of power in MLB, theoretically unable to compete in a "small" market because they were so horribly underfunded by their penny pinching multi-billionaire owner and were slated for contraction. Now THAT is the worst kind of losing!
The Twins were putrid for the early 80's and most of the 90's bookending their two domed titles in '87 and '91 (The Diamondbacks are the only other team to win a World Series with a roof). Save for the lone Senators title in 1924, this franchise has a dreadful past, pre-1960 move to Minny. Even their 1991 World Series win followed a last place finish the season before.
Since 1972, the Twins have finished in the top half in attendance in the American League only three times and finished last seven times. In their last 6 years in Washington, they were last in attendance each season.
Chicago White Sox
Eighty Eight years. Charles Comiskey. The Black Sox. Tabbed collared jerseys. Shorts. Disco Demolition Night. Comiskey Park. Relegated to the status of Chicago's "other" team. A.J. Pierzynski. Jay Mariotti v. Ozzie Guillen.
The White Sox have had a trainwreck of trainwrecks in their "colorful" history.
After their 1919 Black Sox scandal - when they won three games despite throwing the series - until their World Series sweep in 2005, the Pale Hose won a total of five postseason games.
Historically speaking, the White Sox have been notoriously inconspicuous - and not just in their own town. They have won 100 games once and lost more than 100 games twice. Until Frank Thomas passed him, Harold Baines was the franchise's ALL-TIME HR leader! Billy Pierce and Wilbur Wood are the team's most winning pitchers since the Black Sox team.
National League
Gee, even the team that justmissed the playoffs is starting it's own legacy of losing. The Mets didn't just have the worst team of the 20th Century in 1962 but now they have re-defined choking after making Division Champs out of the Phillies two years in a row while shoving the Brewers into an unfamiliar spot; the playoffs!
Philadelphia Phillies
ONE World Championship in 126 years.
The Phillies aren't the only team in Philly with a history of losing, the whole city is stuck in the non-championship doldrums. Twenty Five years ago, the City of Philadelphia held it's last parade down Broad St. And it's not like there was exactly a well worn path of parades there, either.
The Philadelphia Athletics won FIVE championships all by themselves before they left Philly behind in 1954... since then, there has been six championships in Philadelphia. NONE since 1983. The Phillies have accounted for ONE World Championship in their history - 1980!!! The Eagles won NFL titles in '48 and '49 when the rival AAFC was in it's glory and then in 1960 the Eagles won their last championship the same year as the upstart AFL's inaugural season. The Sixers (1967, 1983) and Flyers (1974, 1975) won two titles each in their existences.
But back to the Phillies. Since they began play in the N.L. in 1883, the Phillies have won 100+ games TWICE (1976 & 1977) and have lost 100+ games thirteen times.
Between 1918 and 1948, the Phillies finished their season in better than 5th place - ONCE! (They were 4th in 1932 - the only season in that stretch that they finished above .500 at 78-76) They were in dead last place 16 of those seasons and second to last in seven!
Oh yeah, the Phillies are the only MLB franchise with more than 10,000 losses.
THAT is a legacy!
Chicago Cubs
100 years since a Championship... you know that. But let's remember the REAL curse of the Billy Goat was put into place in 1945, the Cubs' last World Series appearance. "The Curse" wasn't that the Cubs wouldn't win the World Series, it was that they'd never GET to another World Series... 100 years is just a coincidence.
The Cubs were originally called the White Stockings and dominated the early days of the National League winning 6 titles in the first 11 years of the Senior Circuit led by baseball's first "superstar" King Kelly - the Babe Ruth before Babe Ruth. Then they changed their name to the Cubs in 1903, had a record .763 winning percentage and still N.L. record 116 wins in 1906 but lost the World Series to their cross-town rivals. The Cubs won back to back World Series in '07 and '08 and have sucked ever since...
They have lost the World Series seven times since 1908 including the series with Babe Ruth's "called shot" and their last appearance in the Fall Classic in 1945.
Maybe there is a Billy Goat curse - or more aptly described "myth". Maybe the Cubs just find a way to suck when it counts.
The Miracle Mets in '69. Leon Durham's glove in '84. Will Clark's amazing '89 NLCS. Steve Bartman (or more appropriately Alex Gonzalez's error) in 2003... stuff just happens to the Cubs, doesn't it?
Keep this in mind... the Cubs haven't won a single playoff game since the "Bartman game".
Los Angeles Dodgers
The Dodgers' luck surely has changed since they moved to picturesque Chavez Ravine but the Dodgers have a history of tremendous sucktitude. Even since World War II, the Dodgers have posted only 12 sub .500 seasons, so they have been remarkably not that bad. So where's the long history of losing, Stiles?
The Dodgers, when they were still in Brooklyn known as the Robins until 1932 - as well as some other nicknames like the Bridegrooms and Superbas - were the ORIGINAL "lovable losers". They weren't called the "lovable losers" because they lost a lot, but because they were second class citizens in New York compared to the Giants and Bronx Bombers but also because they just couldn't seem to get that final win.
They lost seven World Series before finally winning their first in 1955 but have won five since - all in Los Angeles! They were runners up to the Mighty Yankees in the World Series a miraculous seven times while topping the Pinstripes only thrice - 1955, 1963 and 1981.
Of all the teams in this year's playoffs, the Dodgers have the best all-time winning percentage at .524.
Milwaukee Brewers
For starters, the Brewers started as the Seattle Pilots. That's quite a legacy in it's own right. Like many expansion teams the Brewers took a while to get out of the cellar - they didn't have a winning record until their tenth season. They've only been to the playoffs twice previously - the strike shortened 1981 season and again in 1982 eventually losing the World Series to Whitey Herzog's Cardinals. That's quite a long time in the realm of professional sports - or longer ago than the birth of the seeming majority of internet users!
The Brewers have long been a vagabond franchise as the only team to have played as residents of the AL West, AL East and AL Central. Also, the Brewers are the only MLB team to have switched leagues from AL to NL in 1998 - supposedly to aid expansion and to alleviate scheduling conflicts but more logically to capitalize financially on their geographical rivalry with the popular Cubs. They were also the property of the Selig family - a perpetual double whammy!
So Stiles? What's the point of all of this?
Well, it appears this might be the last "October" since MLB decided to extend the season into November next year...
There's been a lot of hullabaloo made over the fact that both of Chicago's teams are in the playoffs (even if the White Sox stay is only a one game playoff) together since 1906. I think it's also big deal that no New York franchise is in the playoffs for the first time since 1993 or that both Los Angeles area-based teams are in the playoffs for only the second time (2004).
It's also very interesting to note that Minnesota, Milwaukee and Tampa Bay all play in domes. The only other time three playoff teams called a dome "home" was 2001 when the Astros, Diamondbacks and Mariners made the playoffs together.
So...
It's 2008 and NONE of the team's histories MATTER now. Will the Cubs find a way to get stomped out of the playoffs - probably. Will people blame it on a "curse" instead of simply getting "beat" - probably.
If they win the World Series, will it be "victory" or "overcoming the curse"? Let me just say, I've placed a few curses in my life and coincidence is ALWAYS more potent than any "curse"...
If the Rays or Brewers win their first World Series, baseball benefits from the variety. Certainly the fan bases can finally silence their detractors and usher in a new wave of franchises copying their success by developing wisely from within.
If the Phillies end the "Curse of Jim O'Brien" or if the Dodgers or Twins end their extended Title slump, even if the Angels, White Sox or Red Sox can earn another title in this decade, true baseball fans will enjoy it fully and then step into the darkness of the long winter... yearning and pining for just one more game to relish - just 120 or so days until Spring training begins again!
Coincidentally... It happens every year. Only one team can end it's October with a victory.
Only one team can keep the past in the past this season and forget it's Long History of Losing (or not start a new era of losing) while the rest go back to the drawing baord and "Get 'em next year!"
Whose October is it this time???
