Tonight, the Washington Nationals will play the 12,000th regular-season game by a Washington team since the Washington Senators joined the American League back in 1901. As you can see, the story of Washington baseball is a story of remarkable futility:
Original Senators (1901-1960) (9,088 games): 4,223 - 4,865 (winning percentage of .465)
New Senators (1961-1971) (1,772 games): 740-1,032 (winning percentage of .418)
Nationals (2005-present) (1,139 games): 497-642 (winning percentage of .436)
Total (11,999 games): 5,460 - 6,539 (winning percentage of .455)
Of the 30 major league franchises, only Tampa Bay (winning percentage of .448) has a lower winning percentage than Washington's.)
Here's another way to look at it. Of the 30 major league franchises, only the Phillies are more than 1,000 games under .500 for their history. Philadelphia has a record of 9,240 - 10,295, so they are 1,055 games under .500. Of course, the Phillies have played 19,535 games. Washington's various baseball teams have played only 11,999 games, and they are collectively 1,079 games below .500.
But this year, the Nats are 5-2.
From 1937 through 2011, the Redskins have a regular-season record of 528-499-22, for a winning percentage of .514.
ReplyDeleteOf the 16 original franchises that started battling for the World Series back in 1903, only four have all-time records below .500.
ReplyDeleteThose four are:
1. The Philadelphia/Kansas City/Oakland Athletics (all-time winning percentage of .486).
2. The Washington Senators/Minnesota Twins (all-time winning percentage of .482).
3. The St. Louis Browns/Baltimore Orioles (all-time winning percentage of .474).
4. The Philadelphia Phillies (all-time winning percentage of .473).
Of course, the Washington teams, collectively speaking, have done worse than any of these franchises.
At least Washington has the Wizards.
ReplyDeleteThe Wizards -- counting all of their iterations back to 1962 -- have an all-time record of 1,838 - 2,278, for a winning percentage of .447.
ReplyDelete(Note for Eric: The Baltimore Bullets won 49.3 percent of their games, the Capital Bullets won 57.3 percent of their games, the Washington Bullets won 47 percent of their games, and the Washington Wizards have won 39.1 percent of their games).