A couple of days ago, I wrote about an impending (sad) milestone for my phavorite baseball team.
As I write this, the Phillies are still at 9999 losses, hanging on the brink of going to five digits in the loss column. Then again, they haven't yet played any games after Tuesday's All-Star Game, so I suppose that isn't much of an achievement.
One thing I meant to discuss but didn't get around to in the previous post is the gap between the Phils and the rest of the pack when it comes to losses. It's not merely that they're just about to become the first professional sports team to reach 10,000 losses (unless you want to count the Washington Generals). It's their immense margin over the field.
That field really consists of only eight clubs, the "Original Eight" teams in the National League. In comparison to the NL, founded in 1876, the American League consists of rank newbies; it didn't come into existence as a major league until 1901. Hence, its sobriquet as the "Junior Circuit".
As I mentioned last time, the Phillies came into being in 1883. That makes them a relatively new team in this crowd. The Chicago Cubs and Atlanta (formerly Milwaukee, formerly Boston) Braves trace their existence all the way back to the creation of the National League in 1876. The Cincinnati Reds, Pittsburgh Pirates, and St. Louis Cardinals go back to 1882. The San Francisco (once New York) Giants entered the NL at the same time as the Phils, and the Los Angeles (nee Brooklyn) Dodgers started in 1884. So some of the Phillies' NL rivals had as much as a seven-year head start in loss-accumulation.
Excluding the one National League game played after the All-Star break (Cincinnati lost to the New York Mets), here are the cumulative win-loss records of the Original Eight, in descending order:
Team | Wins | Losses | Winning % |
Phillies | 8808 | 9999 | .468 |
Braves | 9659 | 9681 | .499 |
Cubs | 9944 | 9425 | .513 |
Pirates | 9569 | 9339 | .507 |
Reds | 9636 | 9338 | .508 |
Cardinals | 9805 | 9156 | .517 |
Dodgers | 9843 | 8932 | .524 |
Giants | 10151 | 8681 | .539 |
[Source --
Baseball-reference.com]
Only two of the Original Eight have lost more games than they've won. All but one of them have won at least 9500 times, but the Phils aren't even close to that. In fact, they're an astonishing 761 victories behind the next lowest win-total. If they maintained their all-time winning percentage, it would take them over 10 years to reach the next-worst (current) number of games won. Ugh.
Looking at it another way, if the Braves continued at their all-time pace, the Phillies would have to go something like 636-0 to avoid reaching 10,000 losses ahead of them. That would be just under four years without a loss. Something I'd like to see, but somehow I doubt it'll happen.
How 'bout still another viewpoint on just how awful the Phillies have been? As we've seen, the original American League teams started play as a major league in 1901. In other words, the AL teams gave the Phillies 18 extra years to win games before they started playing (note, however, that most of those seasons ran between 100 and 130 games in length, rather than the 154 or 162 since then). Despite that head start, the Phillies have won fewer games in their history than the detestable New York Yankees. A lot fewer. At the All-Star break, the Bronx Bombers had compiled a 9331-7137 record since 1901, for a cumulative winning percentage of .567. Eighteen fewer seasons, 523 more victories ... double ugh.
A commenter on my Wednesday diary pointed out that triskaidekaphobes (and -philes, if they exist) would find it particularly appropriate if loss number 10,000 were to occur tonight, Friday the 13th. FOX Sports would really like to see the Phils win tonight, because they're telecasting Saturday's game. And ESPN would really like to see the Phils win both tonight and Saturday, so that they'd have the opportunity to carry the 10,000th defeat on Sunday Night Baseball.
As for me, I'm still holding out for that four-year winning streak. But I'm not betting the house on it.
[cross-posted from Peace Tree Farm]