Out of the numerous somewhat undermining narratives that a World Series will produce, perhaps the biggest one from this particular Fall Classic is whether or not the San Francisco Giants are now a dynasty having won three titles in the last five seasons.
The answer is yes.
I almost want to end the article right there, but just to support that hard-to-come-up with theory, here’s a look at the teams who have done what the Giants have done:
Philadelphia Athletics: 1910-1913
Boston Red Sox: 1915-1918
New York Yankees: 1936-1939 (Four straight)
New York Yankees: 1939-1943
St. Louis Cardinals: 1942-1946
New York Yankees: 1949-1953 (Five straight)
New York Yankees: 1958-1962 (Getting kinda redundant, isn’t it?)
Oakland A’s: 1972-1974 (Three straight)
New York Yankees: 1996-2000 (Four out of five)
If you combine the Yankees runs (which some do) that’s only seven other times in history this has happened, and the first time it’s happened in the National League in almost 70 years.
The Philadelphia A’s were led by Eddie Collins and Home Run Baker at the plate and Buck Coombs and Eddie Plank on the hill, but the team was most famous for their manager, Connie Mack, who led the team to four straight 90-win seasons in that time frame. They were considered the first dynasty in modern baseball history.
Those Red Sox teams had a guy on it you might have heard of: Babe Ruth. In his age 20-23 seasons (as a pitcher, remember), he was the ace of the staff and the team’s best overall offensive weapon, as well, famously transitioning to the outfield in 1918 midway through the season to lead the league in homers while leading the Sox to their third title in four years. Of course, after the 1919 season, we all know what happened and that was the last title Boston would win for a long, long time.
I put the two Yankees teams up there separately because, yes, that actually did happen. They won four straight titles from 1936-1936 and also won titles in 1941 and 1943. After Ruth retired in 1935, the Bombers still had the most potent lineup in baseball, featuring Lou Gehrig, Bill Dickey, and this young up-and-comer named Joe DiMaggio.
DiMaggio’s incredible four year run helped the Yankees move forward, with the unfortunate retirement of Gehrig happening in the middle of the 1939 season. A 101-win season in 1941 (thanks to DiMaggio’s incredible .357/.440/.643 line and the emergence of Tommy Keller) got them to the Series once more. And even after DiMaggio’s service in World War II left them without their best player, Keller led the team to avenge their loss in the ’42 World Series against St. Louis the following year.
Those Cardinals began baseball’s next dynasty, as DiMaggio’s exit left the Yankees and the rest of baseball ripe for the picking. 21-year-old Stan Musial and Enos Slaughter helped lead the Cardinals to four World Series appearances in five years, beginning with that win in 1942. In 1944, the Cardinals won 105 games for the second straight season, riding Musial and Johnny Hopp in the outfield to a Series victory over the St. Louis Browns. In 1946, Slaughter returned from his own service in World War II to assist Musial and the Cards once more to a title, halting the Red Sox in seven games to keep the Curse of the Bambino afloat.
1949 famously began with DiMaggio missing in action due to a heel injury, causing him to miss the first three months of the season. When he came back, he was the same ol’ Joe, jolting the Yankees forward over the Red Sox in the standings and past the Brooklyn Dodgers for the first of five straight titles. That five year stretch featured some of the great Yankees of all time: Berra, Rizzuto, Mize, Henrich, and of course, Mantle in 1951 taking the torch from DiMaggio to push the Yankees to two more titles and the arrival of Whitey Ford in 1953 as staff ace solidifying the team’s fifth title.
Mantle would continue to roll in 1958, with the Yankees winning the Series that year behind him, Ford, Bob Turley’s sensational year, and Don Larsen’s famous perfect game, giving manager Casey Stengel his seventh title with the team. After missing the Series in ’59 and losing it in ’60, the famous 1961 season with Mantle and Maris chasing the Babe’s single-season home run mark in a 162-game schedule led to a World Series title as well, and they would repeat in 1962 when Willie McCovey’s line drive in Game 7 of that series was caught by Bobby Richardson to hold off San Francisco’s last great chance at a ring for quite some time.
The A’s team that won three straight in the 1970’s behind Reggie Jackson, Catfish Hunter, Rollie Fingers and a host of others almost looked like a blip on the radar of sorts, becoming the first team to win three straight since the Yankees. But they were without question the best team in baseball over that time, making their move from Kansas City a few years earlier look like a good move for the franchise. (Personal triviata: When I worked for the Blue Jays, Darold Knowles was the pitching coach for Dunedin, and during the A’s World Series win in 1973, he became the only player in Major League history to pitch in all seven games of a World Series, earning saves in Games 1, 4 and 7.)
The last team on that list is a team we all remember. The Core Four, Brosius, O’Neill, Jim Leyritz’s homer, etc. It goes on and on and on with that team. They went to five World Series in seven years, famously losing out on their chance for four in a row on Luis Gonzalez’s blooper over Jeter off Rivera in Game 7 of the 2001 World Series.
So now to the bigger point after the history lesson. The reason why the Giants aren’t quick to be called a dynasty is because if you look at the dominance the Yankees have on that list, their runs from 1936-1943 and 1949-1962 are downright ridiculous. That’s where the term dynasty gets used the most, and it’s due to a run that has no rival in baseball history. The fact that between 1936 and 1964 there were 29 World Series and the Yankees were a part of 22 of them is the most remarkable feat by a team in baseball history.
That’s what other teams who have good runs get put up against and it’s not fair. No team is going to go to 22 World Series in 29 years ever again. There’s just no chance of that happening. So for the three teams to accomplish the feat since that run, they are all considered dynasties, first and foremost. That can’t be argued.
Secondly, there is a good argument that there could have been a fourth title for San Francisco in 2011 had it not been for the Buster Posey injury, but revisionist history always clouds the accomplishments that happened afterward. I won’t necessarily make that argument, but considering the Giants team in 2011 were having a good run up until that injury, it’s something to consider.
The other argument to be heard is that the team won only 76 games last year, and of the teams on that list, they are the only one to have a year under .500 amongst their World Series title-winning seasons. I’ll buy that argument to an extent, but if baseball has shown us anything since the Wild Card came along in 1995, teams can get better from year-to-year much quicker than others. There are more ups and downs for teams nowadays than they were in the past thanks to free agency, advanced metrics and the balanced scheduling. While history would show that the 76-win season looks bad, it’s more an aberration than anything else. The team that did that last year added a few minor pieces, lost a big one in Matt Cain, and had a 12-win improvement in 2014. Go figure.
The question now becomes what can they do going forward. Yes the #EvenYearMagic (Magic has definitely been substituted by another word by many; we’re not using it on this blog) will put the odds in San Francisco’s favor in 2016, but this is a team that will still have Posey, Bumgarner, Pence, Belt, Panik, Crawford, Blanco, will get back Cain and Pagan next year, and will most likely throw a huge chunk of change at Sandoval to stick around. This team has a core that few teams in baseball can rival with the best manager in baseball at the helm and one of the most player-friendly GMs in the game, as well. This might not be over, folks.
Here’s to the newest dynasty in Major League baseball. We were all witnesses to history being made.
