Monday, September 21, 2009

A World Series fact I bet you didn't know

I was driving the other day doing what i do best... thinking about random baseball stuff.

And in my wandering mind I stumbled across a little factoid that surprised me.

Two expansion franchises have never met each other in the World Series.

In every World Series there has been at least one franchise that existed back in 1903 (the year of the first series.)

Think about it for a second...

Since 1961 there have been 14 new franchises added to Major League Baseball.

1961 gave us the Angels (whether they are from Los Angeles, California, Anaheim or Los Angeles of Anaheim) and the new Washington Senators (now the Texas Rangers.)

1962 gave us the Houston Colt .45s (now the Astros) and the Mets.

1969 was the beginning of the Kansas City Royals and the Seattle Pilots (now the Milwaukee Brewers.) Also that year was the debut of the San Diego Padres and the Montreal Expos (now the Washington Nationals.)

1977 marked the debut of the Toronto Blue Jays and the Seattle Mariners.

1993 the NL expanded to form the Florida Marlins and Colorado Rockies.

And the last expansion was 1998 with the Tampa Bay Rays and the Arizona Diamondbacks.

Now the Rangers, the Nationals and the Mariners have never played in a World Series.

The first ever expansion team to win a pennant was the 1969 Mets and they played the Orioles... who began as the Milwaukee Brewers and became the St. Louis Browns.

In 1973 the Mets played the A's... who were in Oakland but were a team in 1903.

The other two Mets pennants (1986 and 2000) were against the Red Sox and Yankees.

The next expansion franchise to win a pennant was the Royals. They played the Phillies in 1980 and the Cardinals in 1985.

The Brewers (formerly the Pilots) played the Cardinals in 1982.

The Padres played the Tigers in 1984 and the Yankees in 1998.

The Blue Jays played the Braves in 1992 and the Phillies in 1993.

The Marlins beat the Indians in 1997 and the Yankees in 2003.

The Diamondbacks beat the Yankees in 2001.

The Angels beat the Giants (San Francisco by way of New York) in 2002.

The Astros lone pennant was a loss to the White Sox in 2005.

The Rockies played the Red Sox in 2007.

The Rays played the Phillies in 2008.

There it is... no two expansion teams have ever faced off.

Oh there have been close calls.

The 1980 Astros had the pennant winning run in scoring position in the NLCS which would have clinched a Houston/Kansas City World Series.

The 1986 Angels were one strike away, a sacrifice fly away and a Gary Pettis near home run away from meeting the Mets in the World Series.

What does this mean?
What is the significance? 

Well if the Angels play the Rockies in the World Series... it will be unique. (Not that it will get good ratings.)

And if I am forced to have this little nugget in my head... then by God you will have it too!

2 comments:

  1. Anonymous7:11 PM

    Two minor points:
    1) You referred to the Nationals as the Senators
    2) The Orioles were originally the Milwaukee Brewers before becoming the Browns

    interesting piece of trivia, though

    ReplyDelete
  2. I made the correction

    ReplyDelete