The Top 10 Baseball Teams of All Time
Here's a Look at the Greatest in the Game's History
Mar 24, 2007 James Lincoln Ray
10. The 1929 Philadelphia Athletics
The Tenth Best Team in baseball history is the 1929 Philadelphia Athletics. This squad boasted six Baseball Hall of Famers: Lefty Grove, Al Simmons, Eddie Collins and Mickey Cochrane. The A's won 104 games, had the second best offense and the best pitching in the American League, and outscored their opponents by almost 300 runs. Then they hammered the Cubs in five games in the '29 World Series.
9. The 1919 Chicago White Sox
Before they became known for the Black Sox Scandal, this team was headed for its second World Series Championship in 1919 when New York and Chicago gamblers made several key players an offer the couldn’t refuse. The 1919 Black Sox Scandal resulted in the banishment of eight Chisox players by Commissioner Kennesaw Mountain Landis. The banished players included future locks for the Baseball Hall of Fame in Shoeless Joe Jackson and great knuckleball pitcher Eddie Cicotte.
8. The 1915 Boston Red Sox
This World Series winner was built on great pitching. Here are the Win-Loss record and the ERA's of their starting rotation for 1915:
Rube Foster: (19-8, 2.11 ERA)
Ernie Shore: (19-8, 1.64 ERA)
Babe Ruth: (18-8, 2.44 ERA)
Dutch Leonard: (15-7, 2.36 ERA)
Smokey Joe Wood: (15-5, 1.49 ERA)
Amazing. Enough to win three World Series titles in four years. Then they won zero for the next 86 years.
7. The 1955 Brooklyn Dodgers
This is the team that finally got past the New York Yankees and won the lone Championship for Brooklyn Baseball. The team went 98-55 and blew away the Milwaukee Braves by thirteen games in the regular season. Then in the World Series, they finally erased the ghosts of 1941, 1947, 1949, 1952 and 1953 by taking out the Bombers in a memorable seven game series.
6. The 1934 St. Louis Cardinals
The Gashouse Gang was led by Baseball Hall of Famers Joe “Ducky Medwick”, Frankie Frisch, Dizzy Dean, and hitting sensation Ripper Collins, who hit .331 with 35 home runs and 128 RBI. They beat the New York Giants in a pennant race that came down to the last weekend, and then prevailed over Hank Greenberg’s Detroit Tigers in seven games.
5. The 1961 New York Yankees
The M & M Boys led the 1961 New York Yankees team to a 109-53 record. Roger Maris broke Babe Ruth’s home run record with 61 dingers, and Mickey Mantle hit .328 with 54 HR and 128 RBI. Whitey Ford won 25 games and the Cy Young Award. Even though the majority of fans verbally attacked the unpopular Maris as he approached the magic record, the Yankees banded together behind the leadership of Mantle, Manager Ralph Hook and veteran greats Yogi Berra and Elston Howard.
4. The 1906 Chicago Cubs
Tinkers to Evers to Chance. 116 wins and only 36 losses. The best winning percentage ever. Five starting pitchers with ERAs under 2.00. The beat the Giants by twenty games during the regular season. Then they lost the World Series to the “Hitless Wonder” Chicago White Sox in six games. However, they were still one of the greatest teams ever, as evidenced by their 1907 and 1908 World Series wins.
Otherwise known as The Big Red Machine, this is another team laden with Baseball Hall of Famers: Joe Morgan, Johnny Bench, Tony Perez, Pete Rose. Whoops. Not him. But he was a great, great ballplayer, even if he was a degenerate gambler. The Reds also had sluggers George Foster and Ken Griffey, Sr. to round out their slugging attack. They won 108 games, cruised through the playoffs and beat the Red Sox in the legendary 1975 World Series.
2. The 1998 New York Yankees
The 1998 Yankees did not have a single superstar. In a year where four players hit more than 50 homers, and 2 actually hit more than 60, no one hit even 30 home runs for the Yankees. But this was truly a team of balance, with tough starting pitching from top to bottom, a lights-out bullpen, and a balanced offensive that never gave up.
That season, Babe Ruth hit 60 Home Runs. Lou Gehrig had 47 HR and 175 RBI. Tony Lazzeri hit .309 with 102 RBI. Bob Meusel hit .337 with 109 RBI. Earl Combs hit .356 with 231 hits and 137 Runs scored. They also had great pitchers in Waite Hoyt, Urban Shocker, and Herb Pennock. These Yankees outscored their opponents by almost 400 runs and finished with a 110-44 record. Then they swept the Pirates in the World Series. You can't get better than that!
If you're a baseball fan, here are links to more Baseball Primer articles that explain who invented baseball, the history of spring training, the fastball, the curveball, the screwball, the knuckleball, the designated hitter, and baseball uniforms. Enjoy!
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