Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Columnist has Cards’ numbers
According to St. Louis PostDispatch columnist Rick Hummel, the World Series champion Cardinals have started the defense of their title like no other National League team in 80 years.
Counting the one-game season-opening trip to Miami, the Cardinals had come out ahead in their first five series before they played at Pittsburgh this weekend. According to St. Louis PostDispatch research, no National League team defending its World Series title had started the season with that many consecutive series victories since the New York Giants, coming off their 1921 championship, won their first six series in 1922 before the Cardinals held them to a four-game split at Sportsman’s Park in May of that year.
After that, the New York Yankees in 2010 were the only other team to win their first five series the year following a World Series title.
To illustrate the bull’s eye that is affixed to a World Series champion starting the next season, 47 times in the last 80 years the previous year’s champion has lost or split its opening series the next year. That includes the mighty Yankees, who have won 27 World Series titles, failing to win the first series the next year 13 times. But that percentage is actually good.
The Cardinals are next with 11 World Series titles. But among the previous 10 Cardinals winners, nine of them failed to win even the first series the next season. Only the 1968 club started the season with a series triumph after a World Series title. And none of the Cardinals’ teams repeated as World Series champions.
But the Cardinals’ five consecutive series victories this year have added to a streak not even remotely approached by any other World Series champion. Taking each playoff round last year as one series and adding what the Cardinals achieved at the end of last season, they had won 15 consecutive series going into this weekend.
Old and older
Fenway Park is 100 years old. Wrote Janice Hough of leftcoastsportsbabe.com: “Wow. When it opened those “Cubs World Champion” shirts had barely faded at all.”
Chilly reception
The Chicago White Sox, despite an encouraging start, drew just 38,817 for the first three games of a series against the Baltimore Orioles. Thursday’s game attracted a paltry 11,267.
“The Blackhawks are playing,” pitcher John Danks told reporters. “I don’t blame people. It’s cold outside and the Blackhawks are in the playoffs. Just a victim of the circumstances here.”