On to summer, when the sun runs high and hot, the nights turn steamy, and the hottest teams go on sweaty win streaks and the homers fly out like crazy because, as every fan knows, baseballs love the heat and humidity.
Hey, kid! Don’t freak out! The Baltimore Orioles have had plenty of seasons worse than this one.
Sure, the Orioles will finish a crummy third in the American League East this season. They’ve hovering a game under .500 with just one left to play.
But, it coulda been worse.
In 1899, the Baltimore Orioles finished 4th in the 12-team National League with a 86-62 record.
The Baltimore Sun, September 9, 1899
“The Poor Orioles”
Their .581 win percentage, good enough for 4th place in 1899, would have won them this year’s AL East pennant. So, there. Take that, Blue Jays.
Those Orioles weren’t that bad, especially when you realize that 1899 was also the season that the Cleveland Spiders went 20-134, the worst team in baseball history.
(The Spiders were so bad – and attracted so few fans – that most teams refused to travel to Cleveland for games, forcing the Spiders to play most of their games on the road. Teams don’t get to do that anymore. It doesn’t matter if raw sewage is seeping into the dugouts, you still have to play in Oakland.)
But, finishing 4th wasn’t good enough. At the end of the season, the League decided to cut its “deadwood” and the Orioles were tossed in the chipper along with those lousy Spiders, the Washington Senators, and the Louisville Colonels.
In 1902, a patched-together Baltimore Orioles, now in the American League, finished 8th – 34 games out of first – with a 50-88 record.
The Baltimore Sun, September 30, 1902
“Almost Like a Funeral”
At the end of the season, that team was packed up and moved to New York.
Damn Yankees.
In 1988, the Baltimore Orioles started their season 0-21, the worst start by any major league team ever. They finished the season 54-107.
The Baseball Bloggess 