ST. PETERSBURG, FLA. — Greetings from the World Series. I traveled here from Minnesota today, stopped by the workouts at Tropicana Field and have a bunch of copy to crank out, previewing Game 1.

Meantime, here’s an interesting factoid from the media notes:

After going 66-96 last year, the Rays are trying to become the first team from one of the four major sports to post the worst record in that sport one year and follow with a championship. Only four others have even played for the championship:

* The 1991 Atlanta Braves won the NL pennant but lost to the Twins in the World Series after going 65-97 in 1990.

* The 1958-59 Minneapolis Lakers lost to the Boston Celtics in the NBA Finals the year after going 19-53.

* The 1949-50 New York Rangers lost to the Detroit Red Wings in the Stanley Cup Finals the year after going 18-31-11.

* The 1958-59 Toronto Maple Leafs lost to the Montreal Canadiens in the Finals, the year after going 21-38-11.

(* Note, the 1991 Twins were coming off a last-place finish and 74-88 record in 1990, but that wasn’t the worst record in the majors. That distinction belonged to the aforementioned Braves.)

For some more context on the Rays’ improbable rise, check out this story from John Romano in today’s St. Petersburg Times, as he compares this team to the 1969 Mets, 1914 Boston Braves and 1987 Twins, among others.

The ‘91 Twins get mentioned more often because they went from last place to winning the Series, but the ‘87 team had even less pedigree. Those Twins were coming off a 71-91 record, and had seven consecutive seasons at .500 or below. The ‘91 team at least had a handful of players (Kirby Puckett, Kent Hrbek, Greg Gagne and Dan Gladden) with World Series rings from ‘87.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 21st, 2008 at 3:48 pm and is filed under Around MLB. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.