Welcome back! Hope you enjoyed a quick look at 5 of the top 10 worst sports teams of all time. We reached just the tip of the badness iceberg last time. Now, we'll go through the top 5 and see some astonishingly bad teams. Without further ado:
5. 1916 Philadelphia Athletics
Philadelphia A Hall of Famer Eddie Collins: The absolute ugliest man in professional sports.
The 1916 Philadelphia Athletics are an interesting bunch. It took a lot of hard work to create a team as appallingly bad at the '16 A's. And Connie Mack was a man who was more than up to the task. Mack helmed the A's from roughly 1901 to 1950 and guided a few of the best teams baseball had to offer, but mostly he just survived the worst. But the '16 A's were the worst of a very bad lot. Of course, Mack was legendary for his cheapness. He seemed to find the very concept of paying ballplayers money to play ball patently offensive. His plan to pay each player in infield dirt for offseason farming never did take off. At any rate, in 1914, two years earlier, the A's were a world series team. In fact, they were swept by a vastly inferior Braves team and that World Series pretty much deserves it's own article at some point. Though nothing's ever been proved, there are rumors that the 1914 A's threw the series. Now, coming 5 years prior to the 1919 Black Sox scandal, this isn't all that surprising
Above: Your typical sports gambler, circa 1916.
Whether or not they threw the series or just plain stunk it up during the sweep, Connie Mack had seen enough that he decided to blow up the team. It took him a full year - 1915 - to eject the core of his dynasty, getting rid of Hall of Famers and top players like Chief Bender, Eddie Plank, Jack Coombs, Home Run Baker, Eddie Collins, Herb Pennock and Bob Shawkey. And who did he get in return for trading all this talent away? No one. He sold them all for cash. Yet the fans believed that ol' Connie Mack had something up his sleeve. The man had a plan! Turns out he did have something up his sleeve. His arm. Which he used to sweep all that cash into his pocket. As for his baseball team, his only plan was to sign a bunch of players off the sandlots and pray he found a star. He didn't. In 1916, 6 of the 8 American League teams finished over .500. The seventh, the Senators, finished 1 game uner .500. This has never happened before or since. How did it happen? They all beat the A's who finished a perfectly dreadful 36-117. Two of their pitchers, Joe Bush and Elmer Meyers, combined for 29 wins (and 47 losses) while the rest of the staff could muster only 7 more wins (and 70 losses.) Jack Nabors led the way with 11 complete games and a 1-20 record. This team was just fantastically bad...but still only bad enough for 5th. Because...
4. 1962 New York Mets
Casey Stengel looks into his future and sees....the '62 Mets.
Hilarious. That's probably the best word to describe the 1962 New York Mets. Owners of the worst record, post 1900 (hellooo Spiders!) in major league baseball history, the Mets finished a revolting 40-120, 60 1/2 games behind the front-running Giants. The Mets were rained out opening day, because, as legend has it, when God saw the '62 Mets, he cried.
Typical reaction by Mets fan, circa 1962.
Ownership wanted to create a nostalgia factor by signing over-the-hill veterans that had been released by the Giants, Dodgers and Yankees. They added a bunch of retarded monkeys into the mix as well, apparently, because this team couldn't catch a baseball if their lives depended on it. The Mets made 22 errors in the outfield, 39 errors at third, 39 errors at second and 38 errors at first. Their staff 'ace' was Roger Craig who won TEN games. But he also lost 24. Al Jackson complemented Craig as a formidble one-two punch, going 8-20, while Jay Hook went 8-19. Bob Miller went 1-12 and 'closer' Craig Anderson went 3-17 with 4 accidental saves. Casey Stengel summed it up best when he said, "Look in Cincinnati's dugout, all you see is Mahogony. Look at our bench, all you see is driftwood."
Driftwood.
3. 1976 Tampa Bay Buccaneers
1976 Bucs fan who went on a hunger strike until the Bucs won a game.
Hey, hey, whaddya say, we're Tampa Bay! For all you kids out there, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and not the Detroit Lions, used to be the laughing-stock of the National Football League. It all started in 1976, when the expansion Buccaneers were forced to select names out of a hat blindfolded to figure out who was going to play for them. I could throw stats at you all day about how bad the Bucs were. Like how their starting QB, Steve Spurrier went 0-12 with just 1628 passing yards, 7 TDs and 12 INTs, how they got shutout 5 times, didn't score until week 3, didn't get a TD til week 4. How they were outscored 412-125. How they had 17 players go on IR. SEVENTEEN! And how only 4 starters from opening day were even on the roster by week 14. Yes, all that culminated in a phenominal 0-14 season.
But it's much more fun to tell silly - but absolutely true - stories about the 1976 Bucs. Like how the ENTIRE TEAM got lost in the Houston Astrodome on opening day. They just left their locker room and were on their way to take the field when they got lost. All of them. For thirty minutes. They nearly missed the opening kick off.
Uh. This doesn't look like the Astrodome. Get the #&@!^ map out!
Coach John McKay tried to make the best of a bad situation by seeing the lighter side of nearly every aspect of the team. When asked by the press about his teams offensive execution, he quipped, "I'm in favor of it." And he reportedly told all Buccaneer players that were staying in Tampa during the offseason to report to his office for fake noses and mustaches so no one recognizes "their sorry asses."
However, coach McKay was also a bit of a prophet, because he did say, after the Bucs 0-14 debacle, "We'll be back. It may not be this century, but we'll be back." In 2002, two years in to the 21st century, the Tampa Buccaneers won their first Superbowl.
'76 Bucs coach John McKay
2. 2008 Detroit Lions
This one sorta speaks for itself.
It was going to take a very special team to supplant the '76 Bucs as the worst NFL team - and one of the worst overall teams - of all time. And it was going to take a very special GM to make it happen. Meet Matt Millon. A very, very special little guy. Millon was president and CEO of the Lions from 2000 until September 24th, 2008 when he was shot, strangled, stabbed, poisoned and drowned by disgruntled Lions fans. Oh, wait. That was Rasputin. Millon was just fired. But during his eight year reign of terror, Millon 'led' the Lions to a 31-97 record, the worst record over eight years in the NFL since World War II. However, even though Millon was gone, the machine he set in motion was unstoppable. The Lions achieved immortality in 2008, as they became the first team in NFL history to go 0-16. 2008 was the Lions 75th anniversary as the Lions. They've been around for 79 years all told, but were the Portsmouth Spartans for their first 4 years (which is an infinitely cooler name. Spartans don't go 0-16. Bring back the Spartans!)
Portsmouth Spartans, Baby! Portsmouth Spartans!
The Lions were mathematically eliminated from the playoffs in August. (well, week 11 actually.) They allowed 517 pts, good for 2nd most in NFL history and scored just 268. They lost to a rookie QB (Matt Ryan), a Green Bay QB not named Favre (Aaron Rogers), an NFL Europe QB (JT O'Sullivan) and even an NFL South America QB (Felipe Hidalgo Juan Sancho Suarez). They got blown out. They lost close games. They continued to find ways to pull defeat from the jaws of victory. They blew a 23-13 lead and lost to a Rex Grossman led Bear team. Which is just sad. They were once tied 21-21 in the fourth quarter to the Packers, but still lost 31-21. They even lost to Gus Frerotte, 12-10. I didn't even know Frerotte was still alive, much less playing football, until he beat them. It got so bad, that they signed Daunte Culpepper to play QB because starter Dan Orlovsky got hurt. And I did not make that last sentence up.
It's Sunday and Daunte Culpepper preps for another big game.
Yes, Matt Millon's Lions took losing to an entirely new level, and they are, in my opinion, the worst pro sports team since 1900. But they're not the worst all time. Oh no. That treasured spot belongs to my favorite team of all time...
1. 1899 Cleveland Spiders
Here they are! Your 1899 Cleveland Spiders. I have man love for all of them.
Well, I know I've been dropping Spiders hints all through these articles and we've finally reached them. The single worst team in sports history. As Sinead would say, "Nothing compares to you!" Now, it's a bit of a cheat, I will admit. The Spiders became the worst team due to a massive scam. It is what was called at the time, "Syndicate Ownership" and it was banned soon after the Spider debacle. Essentially, the Robinson brothers, owners of the St. Louis Browns, a rival National League team, bought the Spiders. They then transferred all of the Spiders best players, including Cy Young, to the Browns - and renamed the Browns the Perfectos, figuring they could waltz all over the NL. Of course, other teams followed suit, and the Dodgers, renamed the Superbas, apparently cheated better than the Browns, as they won the division (they bought the Baltimore Orioles). But as for the Spiders...well, how does a team finish a staggering 20-134, 84 games behind the aforementioned Superbas? Here's how: With all their starters playing in St. Louis, the Spiders were forced to field a team full of people that were either way past their prime - except that none of them ever had a prime - or they got young semi-pro players who'd never dreamed of playing professional ball, or they'd just hire the local taco grinder to pitch.
Hey kid, wanna pitch today?
I'm not kidding. Before one game the Spiders asked a 19-year old cigar stand clerk named Eddie Kolb to pitch that days game. All things considered, the kid did pretty well. 1 Game, 8 IP, 18 hits, 19 runs. Never played again. But he's in the baseball encyclopedia forever. In point of fact, the Robinson brothers stated goal was to 'run the Spiders as a side-show.' And they did. And the fans stayed away in droves. It got so bad that opposing teams flat out refused to travel to Cleveland to play the Spiders, so they had to play their final 36 games on the road. Predictably, they went 1-35. Their one win was against Jerry Nopps, who showed up to pitch against the Spiders blind stinking drunk. He was fined and suspended by manager John McGraw. Their pitching staff is as horrific as it is delightful: Jim Hughey 4-30, 5.41; Charlie Knepper 4-22, 5.78; Frank Bates 1-18, 7.24; Crazy Schmit 2-17, 5.86; Harry Colliflower 1-11, 8.17 and Willie Sudhoff 3-8, 6.98. In fact, the Cleveland Spiders hold a record that not only won't ever be broken, it CAN'T ever be broken, as they suffered 109 road losses. An astounding feat, when you consider that nowadays they only play 81 games on the road. Of course back then they only played 77 road games. And somehow the Spiders lost 109. I love this team!
