So you're saying there's a chance?

[Joe Shlabotnik]

Richie Ashburn, FWIW, was voted the Mets' MVP that year. He later said, "I'm not sure what message it sends to be voted the most valuable player on the worst team ever."

Worse than the 1899 Spiders? I think not.

[Jmodene]

He obviously wasn't thinking about pre-1900 baseball; at that time, when one thought of 19th-century baseball at all, one generally only thought of the original Baltimore Orioles, and maybe Cap Anson.

The Spiders were an anomaly anyway, caused by the multiple ownership of teams by the same people. For those who came in late, the story:

The Robison brothers owned both the Cleveland NL franchise and the St. Louis NL franchise, having bought the latter a couple of years earlier when Chris Von der Ahe went bankrupt. They decided, going into 1899, that they would make more money with a good team in St. Louis than a good team in Cleveland, and thus proceeded to transfer all the good Cleveland players - including some guy named Cy Young - to St. Louis, leaving Cleveland with the dregs. (The one player they missed, whose name I forget, was transferred from Cleveland to St. Louis in mid-season.)

The plan didn't work, as St. Louis finished decently, but still a distant fourth place, while Cleveland, as we all know, finished 20-134 and had to play the final seven weeks of the season on the road. After the season, the NL contracted from 12 teams back to 8, losing three of the American Association teams they had absorbed in the 1892 merger, plus Cleveland - leaving St. Louis as the only AA team to survive.

The Cardinals, as they were finally known by then (they had originally been the "Browns", and then the "Maroons" and the "Perfectos"), kept that core together in 1900, but then lost most of their players to the new American League when it became a major league in 1901, and didn't recover (except for a brief while in 1914) for more than 20 years.

And, of course, baseball barred the multiple ownership of teams, to try to prevent such an occurrence from ever happening again, although the Yankees got around the rule by virtue of Del Webb or somebody holding the construction mortgage on Kansas City's stadium in the 1950's - which meant that KC was forced to serve, essentially, as a feeding ground for the Yankees. That ended, thankfully, when Arnold Johnson died and the team was bought by Charlie Finley.

[Joe Shlabotnik]

Knew I could count on you JM.

I got to confess I was going to put the wiki link to the Spiders but then thought "Nah, JModene will cover me."

[Dillagii]

Who is going to be our DH for World Series?

[TheoSqua]

Who is going to be our DH for World Series?

Berkman

[cards2468]

Who is going to be our DH for World Series?

Berkman

would be really nice to get Holliday back so that we can have him, Pujols, Craig and Puma in the same line up

[Jmodene]

Indeed. If Holliday can swing a bat, then yes, your outfield is Holliday-Jay-Berkman and Craig is your DH.

If, however, Holliday can't come back, then Craig is in the OF and we'd have to do something else - like playing Descalso at 3B and having Freese DH.

I need to look up just who the Cards used as DH in previous postseasons. I remember, in the 1982 Series, that we used both Dane Iorg and Lonnie Smith in that role, and I also remember, in 1987, that because of the Clark and Pendleton injuries, we had to use our third-string catcher, Tom Pagnozzi, as the DH in Game One of the World Series.

Hopefully we can do better than that.

[Jmodene]

Knew I could count on you JM.

I got to confess I was going to put the wiki link to the Spiders but then thought "Nah, JModene will cover me."

Glad to be of service.

[Swirls]

Jerrypedia FTW!

[vinsanity]

The Braves won last night and our playoff odds went from 17% to 18%?