It used to be the Damn Yankees.
Well now it's the Damn Dodgers.
Over a 27-year period from 1936 through 1962, all inclusive, the Yankees won 16 World Series titles (in other words, more than half the time), including five in a row from 1949 through 1953.
Meanwhile, over more or less the same period, the St. Louis Browns (the present Baltimore Orioles), finished sixth or worse in the then eight-team American League in 12 consecutive seasons (1930 through 1941) — and the original Washington Senators (now the Minnesota Twins) were derisively referred to as "first in war, first in peace, and last in the American League."
The Phillies also finished last in the National League in all of the first four years after both the Dodgers and the Giants left New York City for the West Coast ("Lebanon, Charles DeGaulle, California baseball," sang Billy Joel of 1958 in We Didn't Start the Fire), including 47-107 in 1961 — and then, when they finished 81-80 and seventh in the newly-expanded 10-team NL in 1962, it earned Gene Mauch Manager of the Year honors (would that happen now?).
And don't even get me started about the Mets and how they played in the first seven years of their existence: five last-place finishes in the National League and two next-to-last-place finishes, including 40-120 in their inaugural year of 1962 (in both this and the following year they played their home games at the Polo Grounds, the former home of the Giants, before moving to Shea Stadium in 1964).
In 1968 — the year before the Mets debunked their myth of having been the "nebbishes" of baseball (Leo Rosten's best-seller The Joys of Yiddish was even published in that same year — and no doubt the word "kvetch" was included in it, meaning "to whine, complain, or grumble, particularly in an incessant or nagging way" — that definition coming straight out of AI).
As a virtually certain lockout in baseball closes in, there are a few seemingly unrelated things that the owners can do to change the culture of the game.
If the owners are as stubborn as they say they are about refusing to implement a salary cap in baseball, then they need to be equally stubborn about holding on to the sport's most hallowed traditions — chief among them the "first division" (and the "second division") and the "cellar" (starting in 1947, the Cubs finished in the "second division" for 20 consecutive seasons, a drought widely attributed to something called "The Billy Goat Curse," and broken only by the arrival of Leo Durocher as manager, after the Cubs had finished last — behind even the Mets! — in his first year at Chicago).
And toward that end, that means adding two expansion teams (both in the South since this could lead to the creation of a "Southern Division" in both leagues), and second, realigning each league into two eight-team divisions (the NHL appears to be doing just fine with this arrangement) the top four teams therein getting colloquially referred to the "first division" and the bottom four the "second division," with ESPN and the other sports networks being encouraged to use these terms whenever possible.
If the owners do that, they might even be able to get away with sending the top four teams in each of the new divisions into the postseason — or, more likely, the top three teams in each division can make it, with the division winners getting a first-round bye (and the fourth-place teams receiving shares of the Players' Pool — a redux of the "first division" days — despite not making the playoffs).
And if a team finishes 84-78 and fifth in their division while a team in the other division of the same league goes 79-83 and finishes fourth in the other division? T.S. — and that doesn't stand for tennis shoes, which baseball players don't wear anyway. And if anyone kvetches (that word again!) about teams playing only 66 games within their own division? Didn't teams play only 78 intra-division games from 1977 through 1993, and 84 games against teams in the other division (interleague play not existing in those days)? This would be nowhere near as bad as that (teams in different divisions of the same league will have 48 meetings each — six games versus all eight opponents — with interleague play also consisting of 48 games, three games apiece).
In the first two-thirds of the 20th century, fans rooted like the devil for their favorite team to finish in the "first division" if the team was at .500 or thereabouts — and to evade the dreaded "cellar" at all costs.
In their recent lame proposal to forestall a lockout, the owners are offering the players 50% of baseball's gross revenues.
How soon we forget the NFL's 1982 strike, when the NFLPA was demanding 55% of the NFL's gross revenues — only to find out that by decade's end the players were actually receiving more than 55% of the league's gross revenues!
In the meantime, baseball's fans and scribes alike need to stop kvetchin'.
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