What Baseball Team Has Never Won A World Series?
Contents
A look at the teams that have never won a World Series title.
The Chicago Cubs
The Cubs have been around since 1876, and have never won a World Series. They have come close a few times, but always seem to fall short. Some people say it’s because they are cursed. Others say it’s because they just don’t have the talent. Whatever the reason, the Cubs have never won a World Series.
The Curse of the Billy Goat
The Chicago Cubs are a professional baseball team based in Chicago, Illinois. The Cubs compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) Central division. The team plays its home games at Wrigley Field, located on the city’s North Side. The Cubs are one of two major league teams in Chicago; the other, the Chicago White Sox, is a member of the American League (AL) Central division.
The Cubs have not won a World Series championship since 1908. The curse began when Billy Goat Tavern owner William Sianis was asked to leave Wrigley Field during game four of the 1945 World Series because his pet goat’s stench was bothering other fans. As he left, Sianis is said to have cursed the team, saying “Them Cubs, they ain’t gonna win no more.” Despite appearances in seven more World Series since then, the Cubs have not won another championship.
The Collapse of 1969
The 1969 Chicago Cubs season was their 98th season in the National League, and the 78th season at Wrigley Field. Despite winning the newly-established NL East Division with a 93–69 record, the Cubs collapsed in September and failed to make the playoffs. It would be another 26 years before they appeared in postseason play again.
The Cubs were leading the National League East by 61⁄2 games on September 2. They then went 8–17 in their final 25 games, finishing two games behind the New York Mets. The Mets went on to win the World Series that year, which remains their only championship as of 2019. The “Miracle Mets” were composed of many veterans, but also featured two key rookies in pitcher Jerry Koosman and outfielder Cleon Jones.
The Bartman Game
On October 14, 2003, the Chicago Cubs were five outs away from winning their first National League pennant in 58 years. They were leading the Florida Marlins 3-0 in Game 6 of the NLCS and had a 3-2 series lead. All they needed was six more outs. And then … disaster struck.
With one out and a runner on first, Luis Castillo hit a simple pop fly to Cubs left fielder Moises Alou. Alou went back to the stands to make the catch … but a fan named Steve Bartman reached out and interfered with him. The ball dropped, and the Marlins went on to score eight runs in the inning to win the game 8-3. The Cubs would go on to lose Game 7 as well, and that fan became Public Enemy No. 1 in Chicago.
The Cleveland Indians
The Cleveland Indians are a professional baseball team based in Cleveland, Ohio. The Indians compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) Central division. Since 1994, they have played their home games at Progressive Field.
The Curse of Rocky Colavito
In 1960, the Cleveland Indians appeared to be on the rise. They had a young, talented team, led by All-Star right fielder Rocky Colavito. That season, Colavito hit .303 with 41 home runs and 122 RBIs, and the Indians won 93 games, just behind the first-place Yankees.
But in the offseason, disaster struck. The Indians traded Colavito to the Detroit Tigers for Harvey Kuenn, a 33-year-old outfielder who was nearing the end of his career. The trade was widely panned at the time, and it’s been blamed ever since for starting a “curse” that has kept the Indians from winning a World Series title.
The Curse of Rocky Colavito is often mentioned alongside other infamous curses like the Curse of the Billy Goat and the Curse of Babe Ruth. But is it really a curse?
There’s no denying that theColavitotrade was a bad one forthe Indians.Kuenn was past his prime and only lasted two seasons in Cleveland before being released.Colavito, meanwhile, continued to be one of baseball’s best hitters for years after the trade. He even made another All-Star team as late as 1968.
But does that really make it a curse? It’s worth noting that some other bad trades have been made in baseball history, but they haven’t resulted in decades-long droughts for their teams. For example, in 1989,the San Francisco Giants traded Will Clarkand Kemba Mitchellto get pitcherKevin Rogersand outfielderHerb Perryfromthe Chicago Cubs. That trade didn’t have any noticeable curses attached to it.
The Collapse of 1997
The 1997 season was a tough one for the CLEVELAND INDIANS. After winning their sixth AL Central title in seven years, the team went into a tailspin in September, losing 13 of their last 17 games and finishing with a record of 86-75. The following year, they would win just 68 games and wouldn’t return to the playoffs until 2007.
The Jose Mesa Game
On November 2, 1997, the Cleveland Indians were just one out away from winning their first World Series since 1948. Jose Mesa was on the mound, and he had already blown a save in Game 7 of the 1996 World Series. The Indians were leading the game 3-2, but Mesa gave up a game-tying home run to Marlins catcher Jim Leyland. The Marlins would go on to win the game in extras, and the Indians would not make it back to the World Series until 2016.
The San Francisco Giants
The San Francisco Giants have never won a World Series. They have been to the World Series five times and have won three times. The last time they won was in 1954.
The Curse of the Bambino
The San Francisco Giants have never won a World Series. In fact, they haven’t even been to one since they moved to San Francisco from New York in 1958. The last time the Giants won a World Series was in 1954, when they were still based in New York. But even that victory came with an asterisk: the team actually lost the first two games of the series before coming back to win the next four.
The Giants’ lack of success since moving to San Francisco has led some fans to believe that the team is cursed. The Curse of the Bambino is a superstition that says that the Boston Red Sox have been cursed since they sold Babe Ruth to the Yankees in 1920. The theory goes that the Curse was responsible for the Red Sox’s long championship drought, which finally ended in 2004.
The Curse of the Bambino has nothing to do with the Giants, of course. But some fans think that another curse might be responsible for their team’s lack of success: The Curse of McCovey Cove.
In 2002, San Francisco Chronicle columnist Scott Ostler wrote about a cursed baseball that had been given to then-Giants manager Dusty Baker by a fan named Steve Bartman. Bartman was a Chicago Cubs fan who interfered with a foul ball during a crucial playoff game against the Marlins in 2003, costing his team a chance to go to the World Series. The Cubs haven’t been back to the Fall Classic since then, and some fans believe that their failure is due to Bartman’s curse.
Ostler argued that Bartman’s curse had also affected the Giants, because Baker had given away the cursed ball instead of keeping it for himself. Ostler suggested that Baker should have known better than to mess with curses, because he himself was once cursed by Jimmy Hoffa.
Whether or not you believe in curses, there’s no denying that the Giants have had some bad luck over the years. In addition to never winning a World Series, they also have never won a pennant while playing in San Francisco. They came close in 1962, but they lost a heartbreaking playoff game to the Dodgers on what has come to be known as “The Shot Heard Round The World.”
The Giants finally broke through and won their first pennant in 2010, but they lost again in the World Series – this time to none other than…the curse-ridden Chicago Cubs.
The Collapse of 2002
In 2002, the San Francisco Giants lost their first game in the World Series to the Anaheim Angels. They then proceeded to lose the next four games, getting swept in the World Series. This was a devastating collapse for a team that had just won the National League pennant. The Giants have not made it back to the World Series since then, and they have only made the playoffs three times since 2002.
The Steve Bartman Game
The Steve Bartman Game is the name given to a Major League Baseball (MLB) playoff game played on October 14, 2003, at Wrigley Field in Chicago, Illinois. Bartman was a fan of the Chicago Cubs who attempted to catch a foul ball hit by Luis Castillo of the Florida Marlins in the eighth inning of Game 6 of the National League Championship Series (NLCS). The event has been cited as one of the key moments in a Curse that had prevented the Cubs from winning a championship since 1908.
