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March 11, 2010

You Could Look It Up

Get Back in Line, Part 3

by Steven Goldman

We continue our backward countdown of the teams that have gone longest without winning a World Series. In this installment: the worst of the original franchises.

Pittsburgh Pirates (1979)
Years since last championship: 31
Reason for gap: The 1979 team wasn’t built to last, with a fascinating mix of veterans who were just about done due to age or injury (like Willie Stargell, Rennie Stennett, Bill Robinson), and some players still in their prime who didn’t have much sensitivity to conditioning, like Bill Madlock, Dave Parker, and Lee Lacy. The starting rotation wasn’t deep, and while the bullpen was very good, it was also old. Under manager Chuck Tanner, the club did manage to rebuild the pitching staff for a time, but it was very slow to react to roster and clubhouse problems. A decade later, with the blossoming of Barry Bonds, Bobby Bonilla, Andy Van Slyke, and Doug Drabek, the Pirates enjoyed a brief return to the postseason, but once those players left or declined, the organization had nowhere to turn as the franchise experienced a financial decline that mirrored that of Pittsburgh itself.

Since the stars of the early '90s departed, the Pirates have only once ranked as high as 11^th in the league in player payroll. Good players the organization did manage to acquire or develop were inevitably traded for more young players in a merry-go-round that quickly lost its purpose—if you’re never going to stop and consolidate then the team is never going to improve, but will function only to spin off player after player in an ever-widening cycle of diminishing returns. Thus did Jason Schmidt, Jason Bay, Aramis Ramirez, Brian Giles, and others get scattered across the leagues. Simultaneously, the Pirates followed the Commissioner’s line on the draft, rarely selecting the best talent available. The few times the organization chose to spend money on veterans, it made disastrous choices such as shortstop Pat Meares or outfielder Derek “Operation Shutdown” Bell. The Pirates may have lacked capital, but far more damaging was the team’s complete lack of leadership and vision.
President the last time they won: James Earl Carter.
Talk around the water-cooler: Three Mile Island; SALT II; OPEC raising prices and gas rationing; the taking of hostages at the U.S. embassy in Iran, the bailout of Chrysler, which posted over $1 billion in losses.
Top of the Charts When They Won: "Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough" by Michael Jackson.
Closest They’ve Come Since: The Pirates coughed out just short of the World Series each year from 1990 to 1992, losing the NLCS in each year by seven, seven, and six games, respectively.
Chances of Winning This Year: The overall talent level is up and should continue to improve with Pedro Alvarez on the way, but the pitchers who are going to make the team relevant don’t appear to have joined the organization. The Pirates have had a very poor touch with pitchers in the first round of the draft, in part because of an aversion to paying out bonus money. Who they take at second overall this June will provide a big hint as to whether this is going to change, although last June’s overdraft of Tony Sanchez with the fourth overall pick was not a good sign.

San Francisco Giants (1954)
Years since last championship: 56
Reason for gap: Though the Giants’ long drought is no secret, it’s still somehow shocking to see the team so far down this list given its status as one of the National League’a great franchises. This is a franchise that has 17 modern pennants and five championships, the team of John McGraw, Christy Mathewson, Carl Hubbell, and Willie Mays. And yet, since they relocated to the West Coast, they haven’t been able to raise another flag. This is especially odd because the Giants have often had the talent to compete, have often had the financial support necessary, and have had the opportunity to win. Some aspects of the long slump are just a matter of bad luck, of not being able to win a key game in a postseason series. As Charles Schulz’s outraged response, a slightly different swing by Willie McCovey and we might not even be talking about more than a half-century without a Giants championship.

Notwithstanding the post-Bonds years, when Brian Sabean’s efforts to rebuild the team have been hamstrung by what must be an organizational edict not to sign any bats, it is tempting to say that, if we want to look for a global cause of over 50 years of frustration that overrides the transient needs of each separate Giants edition, it goes back a phrase used above: "since they relocated." What the heck was Horace Stoneham thinking when he followed the Dodgers out of town? Though he had supposedly already decided to depart (to Minnesota) when Walter O’Malley put visions of California in his head, spooked by declining attendance in the wake of the ’54 championship, had he remained, he would have had the whole of the National League market in New York City to himself. The short-term future may have been dark, but everything that accrued to the Mets in future years would have been his. After the early years in San Fran, Candlestick Park was generally a poor draw, and this undoubtedly handicapped the club’s efforts through the construction of AT&T Park.
President the last time they won: Dwight David Eisenhower, saying much too little about Joe McCarthy.
Talk around the water-cooler: The Army-McCarthy hearings; the fall of Dien Bien Phu; Brown vs. Board of Ed; J. Robert Oppenheimer’s security clearance; that loud "Rock and Roll" the kids are listening to.
Top of the Charts When They Won: "Hey There" by Rosemary Clooney. When she says, "Are you talking to me? " I thought it was Robert DeNiro on estrogen.
Closest They’ve Come Since: The Giants have reached the World Series three times since they upset the Indians in 1954. They dropped the 1962 and 2002 Series in seven games, while they were swept in 1989 by the Oakland A’s.
Chances of Winning This Year: Once again, the offense is unlikely to support Tim Lincecum and Matt Cain, but if they somehow slip into the postseason, they might be able to ride those pitchers to win it all. It’s asking for two long-shot bets to pay off in one season.