When the Washington Senators moved to Minnesota in 1961, the American League created a team to mollify individuals that resided, either part-time or full-time, in the nation’s capital.
The new Senators were a joke as a baseball team. They lost at least 100 games in each of their first four seasons. Their highest finish before the 10-team American League split into six team divisions in 1969 was sixth place, which they managed to accomplish only once.
The moribund team moved to Texas following the 1971 season to become the Texas Rangers, an entirely new franchise that carried on the Washington Senators’ losing tradition.
Unlike today, during the 1970s and 1980s, losers were still called losers.
The Rangers won the 2010 and 2011 American League pennants. They were considered a success, a winning team, because they made it to the World Series.
The only thing the 2010 and 2011 Rangers won was the right to lose to the San Francisco Giants and then to the St. Louis Cardinals.
To win means to finish first in a race or contest. Only one team can finish first.
To lose means to suffer defeat or fail to win, as in a contest, race, or game.
The Texas Rangers are in a position to join the 1907-09 Detroit Tigers as the only baseball team to lose three consecutive World Series.
The Chicago Cubs defeated the Tigers in 1907 and again in 1908. The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Tigers in 1909.
Many teams have lost two consecutive World Series, including the 1921-22 and 1963-64 New York Yankees, the 1924-25 and 1936-37 New York Giants, the 1952-53 Brooklyn Dodgers, the 1977-78 Los Angeles Dodgers and the 1991-92 Atlanta Braves.
Division play was partially responsible for bastardizing the meaning of winning. When each league had two divisions, a team could win the division in addition to the pennant and the World Series.
Minnesota Twins fans could “brag” that they were the first team to ever win the American League’s Western Division title. That did them a lot of good.
The Baltimore Orioles won the first Eastern Division title. How many New York Mets fans consider the Orioles “winners?”
Now that there are three divisions and soon-to-be two wild cards in each league, there will be so many “winners” that baseball is becoming closer to achieving the abominable concept that there are no losers.
Having nine teams that win something other than the World Series merely gives false hope to fans. If there were two wild cards in 2011, the Boston Red Sox and Atlanta Braves would have made the playoffs.
Who thinks that those teams were “winners?”
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