| Submitted by Brent Butler I love seeing the Cubs win. But, if I had to pick something in baseball to rank a very close second, it's the Cardinals and the Yankees losing. I was 5-for-6 over the weekend, with the Cardinals losing Saturday, winning Sunday, and the Cubs beating the Yankees both days. What a great weekend! There's been talk of this Cubs/Yankees series being a turning point for both franchises. Yeah, maybe, but only time will tell. Believe me, I'd love to see the Yankees and the Cubs trade places in terms of franchise success. I'd love to see the Cubs win a World Series every third year for the next 76 years as the Yankees have done since 1923, the year of their first World Series victory. Nearly as much so, I'd love to see the Yankees go 94 years without winning a World Series and 57 years without so much as a World Series appearance. The Cubs and Yankees have nearly as large of a fan base, but I believe Cub fans are extremely more loyal. We're talking about the Cubs, one of the least successful sports franchises over the last 55 years. Ironically, a very close second are the White Sox, who have themselves not seen a World Series game in 44 years. In fact, the White Sox have only had 5 World Series appearances, and only 7 playoff appearances in the entire history of that franchise. The Cubs, on the other hand, have made it to the Series 10 times and the playoffs 13 times. The Cubs were the dominant team in the baseball before the Yankees took over that role. The Cubs had 9 seasons between 1904 and 1913 that they had more than 90 wins, 4 seasons of which had over 100 wins. In fact, the 1906 Cubs have the highest winning percentage of any other team in any other year. With a record of 116-36, they had a winning percentage of .763. To put that into perspective, the Atlanta Braves and the Seattle Mariners currently have the highest winning percentages this year, each 42-19 (.689). The 2001 Mariners are the only other team to win more than 115 games in a year, but the Mariners played 10 more games that year than the 1906 Cubs. They were 116-46, giving them a .716 winning percentage. Oddly enough, neither the 1906 Cubs nor the 2001 Mariners won the World Series. The 1998 Yankees were 114-48 (.704) and DID win the World Series. I guess going over that 115 wins mark is a bad omen. Anyway, I just had to share my joy of the Cubs beating the Yankees for the only two times in history. They are now a depressing 2-9 all-time against the Yankees, but that's a lot better than the 0-8 before Saturday! By the way, I got my historical information from baseball-reference.com and current information (as of 6/9/2003 at 11:46 AM CDT) from mlb.com. |
