Courtesy of David Pinto, the Boston Globe has an article which talks about how winning early matters for team ownership groups:
…. In professional sports, an owner’s commitment to winning right out of the gate counts, according to a Globe compilation and analysis of championships won by the last two rounds of owners for every team in the four major US sports leagues. If new owners don’t win a championship within five to eight years of buying a team, depending on the sport, their chances of ever doing so decline dramatically, the Globe found. Many will never win.
One more reason for gloom. Magowan and company had a real chance in their first season (1993, when they won 103 games and missed the playoffs). They had it again in year five (1997), and then again between 2000-04. They’ve had so much bad luck, (it’s not too hard to imagine about forty different things that could have happened that would have ended with a parade in San Francisco during any one of those seasons), but it was not to be.
Now the team has entered the dark ages. A championship hasn’t been this far from reality since the Magowan group took over. It’s now in the history books. No team in baseball history has ever had so great a player play so well, for so long, and failed to taste champagne.
5 Backtalkers
What I’ve been saying for going on 5 years now.
The San Francisco Giants…Your new San Francisco Forty Niners.
Magowan becomes the old Bob Lurie who became the old Horace Stoneham. Brian Sabean has become Tom Haller. John York has become Joe Thomas.
So Long San Francisco. It was a nice run. Nobody to root for now except the over under on Gay Pride day.
[...] Only Baseball Matters wrote an interesting post today on …. Bad news bears?Here’s a quick excerptFebruary 2004 – January 2004 – December 2003 – November 2003 – October 2003 – September 2003 – August 2003 – July 2003 – June 2003 – May 2003 – April 2003 – March 2003 – February 2003 – January 2003 – December 2002 – November 2002 – October 2002 – September 2002 – August 2002 – July 2002 – June 2002 …. Bad news bears? Courtesy of David Pinto, the Boston Globe has an article which talks about how winning early matters for team ownership groups: …. In professio [...]
interesting study….
It reminds of something that Bill James said (and I’m really paraphrasing) about how most owners are dumb as a post and really have no baseball knowledge. They are more impressed by a shiny “Alfonso Soriano” (not to pick on him in particular) than a 8 year old.
I wonder if after a certain point, owners get tired of their plaything, and make half-conscious decisions in that manner. All complaints about Sabean are justified, but I assume that any big signing has to be approved by Magowan. Certainly in the last few years, the Giants scored an A-plus in name recognition (see Michael Tucker, Brett Tomko, on and on) while falling short of judging realistic performance expectations.
How about Ted Williams and the Red Sox? I know, I know, it was back in the Ancient Age, but he’s really the only other player with impact and ability comparable to Bonds (minus glove and speed of course) whose team never got a ring.
Ernie Banks.