Worst Team to Win a Championship

Oh there's no doubt that's the case, BT. My sports viewing history really goes back to '84 or '85, so I wouldn't be able to give you much of an opinion of a baseball team from the 60s.

 

Perhaps, but most of these things aren't done by visual memory anyway. How many people here really saw BYU play in 1984? Enough to really judge their talent level (or lack thereof)? All we have is circumstantial evidence they were not all that, and it's pretty strong.

That being said, it's hard to see how any team can top the 1944 Cardinals, playing in a league woefully stripped of talent. Nothing else really compares.

 

Well, the last 30 years have brought on expanded playoffs and more parity in leagues, so it's more likely you'll see a mediocre team slip through and win a championship.

Since the three-division setup, the 2011 Cardinals (2nd/3rd NLE), 2008 Phillies (2nd NLE), 2006 Cardinals (3rd NLE), 2004 Red Sox (2nd ALE), 2003 Marlins (2nd NLE), 2002 Angels (2nd NLW), 2001 Diamondbacks (2nd NLW), 2000 Yankees (2nd ALE to Cleveland, which didn't make the playoffs), 1997 Marlins (2nd NLE) and 1996 Yankees (2nd ALE) wouldn't have made the playoffs. The 2011 Cardinals, 2004 Red Sox, 2003 Marlins, 2002 Angels and 1997 Marlins were all wild cards.

Prior to 1969, a team had to win its league to just get to the World Series -- 1/8ths and then 1/10ths of the teams got to the postseason. Then, it was 2/12 in each league, then 4/14 or 4/16 after the wild card, and this year, fully one-third of the teams in baseball will be advancing to the postseason, making it only slightly more exclusive than football.

The NFL has gone from only the 2 division winners making the postseason pre-merger (or 4 division winners, if you add in the two AFL divisions), to 4 teams out of 13 in each conference going to the postseason to 5/14 and now 6/16, with a single-elimination tournament giving more opportunities for a 6 seed or a weak division champion to win (as has happened the last couple of years).

The NHL actually is more exclusive than it's ever been. In the Original Six era, 4/6 teams made the playoffs. Now, it's 16/30 -- still meaning you've got to be about .500, but it's much harder to make the postseason (however, once you get there, a good matchup and a hot goalie can carry you -- see the Kings this year). The NBA has the same proportion, but it too has traditionally let more than half the league in. The NBA is also seemingly finding less parity, with stars massing on handpicked teams, so it's worth noting that most of the NBA entries are in the 1970s, with teams like the Bullets and Sonics.

 

Feel the wrath of Robbie Bosco!

I saw them. They were good, not great, but they were the one undefeated "mid-major" team that ever got enough votes to win a national title. That they played a 6-5 Michigan team (probably one of Bo's worst teams ever) in the Holiday Bowl (where the WAC champ went) prevented them from facing a good team in a real bowl that might have cemented their legacy.

 

I'd swap Beem with Ben Curtis. Beem's win at least came during an amazingly hot streak where he won the International at Castle Pines the week before or the week after, IIRC

 

2010 Duke, anyone? Decent enough team that only really found its legs in the postseason...and had an incredibly easy road to the Final Four, where they played Not Kentucky in the semis and a mid-major in the championship game. Toughest matchup they had was Baylor in Reliant Stadium in the Elite 8. It's only two years later, but no one on that team is doing anything in the pros.

2006 Florida would've gotten donkey-stomped by Duke or UCONN had those teams not checked out early. Mason in the semis and that gawd-awful ploddy-ass UCLA faux-dynasty in the championship game.

2000 Yankees went something like 3-20 down the stretch.

2010 Auburn. How lucky was this team? Would never have sniffed the title if Clemson didn't false start on an OT field goal in Week 3. Required Penn Wagers' usual brand of I've-got-money-on-this hackery to beat Arkansas' backup QB. The Iron Bowl might has well have been a Rube Goldberg experiment- if Trent Richardson doesn't get butterfingers on a wide-open TD and/or Mark Ingram doesn't fumble the ball on a line straight through the back of the endzone (i.e., Shit That Just Doesn't Happen), the Barn is toast.

 

At least Curtis has been a mainstay on the PGA Tour in the years since winning his major ... he's won three times, though none of those events will be confused as being star studded. He's actually had a pretty decent year this year and is back inside the top 75 of the WGR. I kind of waffled between the two and went with Beem since he's pretty much disappeared.

 

Ummm, NO. You seem to have a faulty memory there.

That Duke teams was the No. 1 Seed in the East, had a 35-5 record, and won both the ACC regular season title and the ACC tourney title. In short they won everything they possibly could win that year, so it appears to me they "found their legs" significantly prior to the NCAA tournament.

And the notion that they got lucky by avoiding Kentucky is somewhat undermined by the fact that they easily blew out by around a 20 pt margin in the final four the same 2 seed West Virginia team that had easily blown out Kentucky the week before. I'm comfident Duke would've beaten Kentucky anyways (that UK team was extremely overrated as a result of a pitifully soft schedule).

No champ that was a No. 1 Seed going into the NCAA tournament belongs in this conversation. If you were one of the nation's four strongest teams in the regular season you don't deserve to grouped in with late bloomers like 83 NC St and 85 Villanova.

 

1877 Boston Red Caps. (there, happy?)(I would have gone with the 1876 Chicago White Stockings, but they had AG Spalding and Cap Anson.)

 

The 1877 Boston team had Hall of Famers George Wright and Jim O'Rourke plus Deacon White, who was one of the better players in baseball. And they were managed by Harry Wright.

Now, they did get helped by several Louisville players throwing games, but Boston, from what it seems, wasn't a slouch.

And they won it all again the next season, with seven of the eight players playing in every game, with Wright missing one game, and Tommy Bond starting 59 out of 60 games.

 

The '87 Redskins have come up a few times on this thread. One of the damnedest things about them is their strikeball unit beat a Dallas team full of regulars on a Monday night at Texas Stadium. Bobby Beathard built the 'best' strike team in the league, and in only 10 days.

 

A valid point. I don't believe any of their regular season games were nationally televised in 84, so other than the Bowl game, did anyone here actually see them play?

They did go 13-0 and the only real knock against them is something they largely had no control over--their schedule. Ain't their fault the Pac 10 wouldn't give em an invitation.

Conversely, I DID see 90 Colorado play, and a few times, and that was NO national championship team. Beaten by a barely above average Illinois team, actually beaten (minus a fifth down) by a 4-7 Missouri team, a tie against Tennessee, just barely squeezed past a 5-6 Stanford team at home, and squeaked out a 1 point bowl win only because of a game winning TD being called back by a dubious call. Without question the most unimpressive champ from my lifetime.