Baseball's Worst Team Ever
The 1962 Mets Were Bad, But the 1899 Cleveland Spiders Were Worse
Mar 19, 2008 James Lincoln Ray
A young boy approached his grandfather on a sunny, warm day in early May. With his glove in hand and cap on head, the little guy asked his grandpa which team was the worst ever, in all of baseball history. His grandfather leaned back on the park bench, tired from life but basking in the sun's rays, feeling warm and so very content, as he pondered the boys' question.
"I'd have to say the 1962 Mets, my little grandson," uttered the old timer, confident that he had discharged his fiduciary duty to teach all that he knew about the game to his progeny. And it was with this confidence and sense of self-satisfaction that he leaned back to enjoy the perfect sunshine and the warm breeze blowing across the ballpark.
It was then, with eyes closed, relaxed in his private nirvana, that little Billy's right foot came crashing into the scene, his hard rubber sneakers sounding a hard, dull painful thump as it collided with the old man's frail shin bones. Billy, who was prone to such fits of rage, stared at his grandfather with fiery eyes as he said to the old man's surprise: "No grandpa, it was the 1899 Cleveland Spiders. They were way, way worse than the Mets!"
Sure, Little Billy is a brat who needs to know about the sting of the strap, but he is also correct, 100% correct. The 1899 Cleveland Spiders were in fact the worst team in the 130-plus year history of the major leagues. They weren't just bad, or even really bad. They were god awful. They make the '62 Mets look like a tough solid ball club. They make the 2003 Tigers look like world beaters. The record and statistics of the club are not for those fans with weak or nervous stomachs. So heed that warning. And if even you are tougher than leather, proceed with care before examining the composite record of this horrendous ball club.
They won 20 games and lost 134. That is the most losses ever recorded in history, and it is by far the worst winning percentage in the game's great scorebook in the sky.
Their top pitcher, a fella named Jim Hughey, won 4 games and lost 30. And he was their ace. Their other three starters combined for a 7-57 record. All tolled, the Spiders pitching staff surrendered 895 runs, and had a team ERA of 6.37.
Now, that would be bad enough, but it gets a lot worse. Their defense committed 304 errors, which allowed an additional 357 runs to cross the plate. The 1,252 runs scored by opponents were the most runs ever given up by a major league team.
They finished an astonishing 84 games out of first place, and 35 games behind the next worst club. The 1962 Mets, by comparison, ended their season just 60 games behind the pennant-wining San Francisco Giants, and just eighteen games behind the second-to-last Cubs.
The irony (and if you were a Spiders fan, the tragedy) of the team is that the 1898 Spiders were a pretty fine ballclub. Their roster featured future Hall of Famers Cy Young, Jesse Burkett and Bobby Wallace, all of whom had very good years and led the '98 squad to a final record of 81-68. But after the season ended, Cleveland owner Frank DeHaas Robison purchased the St. Louis Perfectos, and thus became the owner of two baseball teams. Like all good monopolists, he promptly shifted all of the good players from Cleveland to St. Louis.
As a direct result, the Spiders went from a competitive team to the worst club in history, and St. Louis, who had been dreadful in '98, improved to 84-67.
Robison's obvious conflict of interest, and the way that he handled it by stacking one team while gutting another, quickly brought to an end the practice of one owner controlling two teams.
The Spiders folded at 1899. Others might say that they were euthanized, or simply put down for humanitarian reasons.
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