-Digger's Daily-
What makes a cinderalla team? A team expected to lose more than they win ends up winning more than they lose. Baseball's history is filled with tales of teams expected to lose winning big games. Let's look at a few of the games most notable cinderella World Series championship teams.
1) 1969 New York Mets Nobody anticipated the Mets sudden success. They entered the NL as an expansion team in 1962 inventing new ways to lose during their inaugural record setting 120 loss season. New York lost over 100 games in 5 of their first 6 seasons and were the laughingstock of MLB. Then came the 1969 season. Led by Tom Seaver (25-7) and Jerry Koosman (17-9), the Mets came out of nowhere after trailing division leading Chicago by 10 games in mid August, they went 38-11 and won the NL East by 8 games. Nobody gave NY a chance in post-season play. The Mets stunned Hank Aaron's Atlanta Braves in NLCS. Then they shocked the world by beating Baltimore 4-1 in the World Series.
2) 1914 Boston Braves Boston was coming off a dry spell of 11 consecutive seasons winning less than 70 games. They were left for dead in July twelve games below .500 and 15 out of first place before getting red hot. They finished 94-59, 10.5 games ahead of 2nd place NY Giants. Heavily favored Philadelphia A's were baseball's best having won 3 of the previous 4 World Series. Boston stunned everyone, epecially the A's, winning 4 straight games.
3) 1960 Pittsburgh Pirates Pittsburgh had just one winning season in 11 leading up to their 1960 championship year. By the end of May, the Pirates were in 1st place and never looked back. Their World Series opponent was the mighty New York Yankees. New York's powerful attack out scored Pittsburgh 38-3 in their 3 wins. Yet, it was the Pirates who won the Series by way of a dramatic Game 7, bottom of the 9th inning home run by Bill Mazeroski, 10-9. It was one of the most exciting Game 7's in league history as both teams came back from big deficits until Maz homer won it.
4) 1987 Minnesota Twins '87 was supposed to be a rebuilding year for Minnesota. A new manager (Tom Kelly) and a very young team didn't have many giving this squad any shot at doing much more than slightly improving from a dismal 6th place finish in '86. This cinderella team didn't come back from double digit deficits. As a matter of fact, they almost lost out thanks to finishing the year with 7 losses in their final 9 games. However, they regrouped in playoff action. Before it was all said and done, the Twins clawed their way to a 4 games to 3 World Series victory over favored St. Louis.
Baseball has it's share of cinderella almost champs worthy of recognition (all lost World Series)...
1967 Boston Red Sox, 2007 Colorado Rockies, 2008 Tampa Bay Rays, 1984 San Diego Padres, 1993 Philadephia Phillies,
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