Spurminator
10-30-2014, 01:55 PM
I never thought I'd say this. I hated the Yankees when they were winning. I hated the way they outspent everyone. I hated the constant hype and the entitlement of Yankee fans. I hated the now seemingly unhateable Derek Jeter.
But in hindsight, I miss consistently dominant teams like the Yankees. I felt a lot better when the World Series was won by a team at or near the top of the standings after a long season. The Yankees were always in the conversation about who the best team in the league was. From 1996-2012, they averaged 97 wins per season.
The Giants have now won 3 of the last 5 World Series, yet at no point in any of those seasons were they considered by most observers to be the best team in baseball. They certainly deserve credit for performing when it matters most (and that was an undeniably historic series for Bumgarner), but why even HAVE a 162 game season if you can win a little more than half of them and still play for the Championship?
I generally don't like the number of teams that make the Playoffs in the NBA or NFL either, but mediocre teams are usually eliminated pretty early on in the NBA thanks to 7-game series, and the NFL has so few games in the season that you could argue regular season record is not a great indicator of where a team truly ranks.
Baseball, on the other hand, continues to give us ho-hum champions. The worst example was when the 2006 Cardinals won the World Series after going 83-79, good for the 13th best record in the league. But I've usually been able to tolerate one-off flukes. (Unfortunately, they also won in 2011 after winning 90 games and boasting the 8th best record in the league.) And now the Giants, on the strength of 88 wins and the 9th best record in the league, have completed what will appear in the Baseball history books to be a dominant 5-year run. They are truly the most unmemorable, unremarkable dynasties in sports history.
But in hindsight, I miss consistently dominant teams like the Yankees. I felt a lot better when the World Series was won by a team at or near the top of the standings after a long season. The Yankees were always in the conversation about who the best team in the league was. From 1996-2012, they averaged 97 wins per season.
The Giants have now won 3 of the last 5 World Series, yet at no point in any of those seasons were they considered by most observers to be the best team in baseball. They certainly deserve credit for performing when it matters most (and that was an undeniably historic series for Bumgarner), but why even HAVE a 162 game season if you can win a little more than half of them and still play for the Championship?
I generally don't like the number of teams that make the Playoffs in the NBA or NFL either, but mediocre teams are usually eliminated pretty early on in the NBA thanks to 7-game series, and the NFL has so few games in the season that you could argue regular season record is not a great indicator of where a team truly ranks.
Baseball, on the other hand, continues to give us ho-hum champions. The worst example was when the 2006 Cardinals won the World Series after going 83-79, good for the 13th best record in the league. But I've usually been able to tolerate one-off flukes. (Unfortunately, they also won in 2011 after winning 90 games and boasting the 8th best record in the league.) And now the Giants, on the strength of 88 wins and the 9th best record in the league, have completed what will appear in the Baseball history books to be a dominant 5-year run. They are truly the most unmemorable, unremarkable dynasties in sports history.