All right, so Mr. Brady and the Pats survived today against a very tough-looking Bills team. (Surprise, Jets!) Maybe they're not quite through yet, though I can't see getting past Baltimore this playoff season.
Meanwhile, though, we're back here with the next two entries in our 10 Greatest North American Sports Dynasties Ever! To recap, we have:
10. Chicago Cubs, 1906-1910.
9. Boston Red Sox, 1912-1918.
And now...
8. Los Angeles Lakers, 1980-1991. It's hard to know just which dynasty to go with from this storied NBA franchise. Phil Jackson's Kobe and Shaq teams went to 7 finals and won 5, from 1999-2000 to 2009-2010. You can even go back to when the team was still in Minneapolis, and won 5 BAA and NBA titles in 6 years, with George Mikan, from 1948-1949 to 1953-1954.
But hey, pro basketball was played in places like Sheboygan and Fort Wayne in those days. I have to go with the Showtime Lakers because the competition was so intense, in what was surely the golden age of the NBA.
Think of who the 1980-1991 Lakers were competing against: Bird's Celtics, Dr. J. and Moses Malone's 76ers, Hakeem Abdul-Olajuwon and Ralph Sampson's Rockets, Isaiah Thomas and Bill Laimbeer's Nasty Boys in Detroit, Jordan and his crew in Chicago, Barkley in Phoenix...
Nonetheless, the Lakers in this time made 9 finals over 12 seasons and won 5 of them. They took 2 of 3 from Bird and almost made it a clean sweep, beat the Sixers 2 of 3, and took Detroit once before losing to the Pistons in a final Magic Johnson missed because of a devastating injury.
Beyond that, they won 10 division titles, won over 60 games 6 times (including 4 in a row, 1984-1985 to 1987-1988), and won over 50 games all 12 years.
Magic, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, James Worthy, Byron Scott, Jamaal Wilkes, A. C. Green, Kurt Rambis, Michael Cooper, Bob McAdoo, etc. Best of all was how they played, brilliantly, at the speed of light—and as a team.
7. New York Yankees, 1994-2003. This might be considered an arbitrary cut-off, I know. But I think the Yanks changed considerably after 700 lifetime wins walked off the team following the 2003 season, in the greatly varying shapes of Andy Pettitte, Roger Clemens, and David Wells.
In the 10 years listed here, the Yanks made the playoffs every season that there were playoffs, and won 8 division titles, 6 pennants, and 4 World Series. They also finished "best in class" during the strike year of 1994, ran up 3 100-win-plus seasons, and won 90 games or more in every year except the lockout-foreshortened 1994 and 1995.
Their overall playoff record in this period was 68-35. During the Yanks' three straight Series titles, 1998-2000, it was 33-8, and in 1998-1999 it was a ridiculous 22-3. That's right: .880 ball in October.
With a little more luck, they could easily have won the 2001 and 2003 Series as well. And of course there was 1998, with their then-record 114 wins, making them in this observer's humble opinion the best team in the history of baseball.
You could even rank this dynasty higher (though I like having it at Number 7, for obvious reasons). But the biggest reason to include it is that, at its very best, these New York Yankees, in 1998, were probably a clean team playing against what was already a heavily juiced MLB.
It's impossible to know for sure, of course, but PEDs seem to have entered the Bronx with snake-in-residence Roger Clemens. Before that, it looks like the Yanks sure weren't juicing—meaning they played at an epic disadvantage—but still turned in the greatest performance by a major-league team. Ever.
Pretty neat.
Look for our next installment in...The 10 Greatest Dynasties! Ever!
While I enjoy your perspectives and observations, it's too much of a reach for me to believe the Yankees of that era, 1995-2003, were "clean."
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, Clemens joined the team in 2000. In hindsight, some of his behaviors -- the bat-tossing episode with Piazza, for instance -- look like classic Roid Rage. Of course, Clemens got tossed from a post-season game back in the 1980s before he discovered steroids, I hope, so it might just be his general assholery. But the fact is that his Yankee career was the middle chapter of his historically unprecedented late-career surge -- Blue Jays, Yankees, Astros -- that almost certainly was fueled by PEDs.
Giambi came aboard in 2002 and was the heart of the lineup for the final years of the period you've defined as a destiny -- an era that I enjoyed thoroughly. Of course, Giambi wound up apologizing for getting caught, and the Yankees spent some time trying to figure out how to void his contract, which they couldn't do.
The entire "Chicks love the long ball" era is suspect. In addition to the Sosas, Bondses and McGuires, guys like Bret Boone and Brady Anderson and even Chipper Jones came along and put up ridiculous power numbers for a year or two before falling back to earth. Darryl Strawberry was a slugger who hadn't hit a lick since 1991, and then in 1998 he knocks the cover off the ball -- and slugs Wilfredo Benitez in the side of the head -- before shriveling up like a prune in 1999 and then retiring. What did Scott Brosius do to have the best season of his career in 1998? Tino Martinez's 1997 numbers appear to fit that pattern. I have no knowledge or information to prove that Brosius or Tino, both fine fellows, were juicing, but their performance anomalies are certainly suspect given what was going on all around them.
In the 90s and 00s, a large portion of the baseball industry was artificially enhanced including quite a few of its superstars. This is beyond dispute. It strains credulity to believe that the best team in the sport during that time was not doing what everybody else was doing to compete and enhance their careers.
That team would be listed higher than number 7. I think I know some of the teams still left to be listed, but most of those teams played in smaller leagues against poorer opponents.
ReplyDeleteFuck you Hal.
Parson, with all due respect, you are so wrong. Tino had his best seasons at age 27 and 29. He was done at 37. His career numbers do not show a surge typical of performance enhancing drugs. Brosius had his best season at age 29 (OPS 127) and was done at age 34. Both had careers very typical of non-enhanced players. Players have peak seasons. PED users have peak seasons in their late 30s and play into their 40s.
ReplyDeleteFuck you fa-la-la-lala-lala-lala Hal.
TWW,
ReplyDeleteI've been wrong before and I'll be wrong again soon.
If a "power arm" juices in the woods and nobody is there to test his urine, is he really juicing?
ReplyDelete#PeeTestersUnite
#JuiceTheHalls
#YankeesRule
#RedSoxDrool
#FuckYouBrian
Hello from Tampa, by the way. If any of you want me to document anything over the next few days, put in your requests.
ReplyDeleteHoss,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoy these. Thanks for taking the time to write them. It's nice to have something else to ponder instead of what my mind usually does.
(I'll leave that open to interpretation - but just know this - whatever you thought first is on you. It's a like a Rorschach test.)
As to the rankings,
I don't know if the 1994-2003 Yankees were the best dynasty ever. There are other Yankee teams that undoubtedly Hoss will write about. It's all relative. It's hard to compare teams from different Eras
Maybe Babe Ruth or Mickey Mantle couldn't survive in today's Talk Radio/Twitter world.
Maybe Lou Gehrig would be frightened by the video subway car race.
J LO and A-Rod? Try Joe D. and Marilyn! It was bad enough without TMZ and Extra!
Rankings and a Guess:
As far as the number one dynasty goes there is only one choice. The single greatest sports dynasty of this or any other era. Decades of dominance.
A team whose very name strikes fear into their opponents. A team that has only lost once in the last 50 years. Ladies and gentlemen ... at Number One... your Harlem Globetrotters.
Doug K.
Just to clarify, Parson: NO, I am certainly NOT saying that the Yanks were clean once Clemens came on the team. Hence my comparing him to the snake in the garden.
ReplyDeleteAccording to sworn testimony, The Rocket soon had Pettitte juicing as well, and yes, of course Giambi was a juicer.
BUT, as for the others...
ReplyDeleteEven before the juicing era, plenty of players improved, got worse, had comeback seasons, etc.
Scott Brosius' career had been on a clear but gradual upward tilt: 17 Hrs, .262 BA, .794 OPS in 1995; 22 Hrs, .304 BA, .909 in 1996.
Then, in 1997, he gets hurt, misses 33 games, and bats .203. Cashman—to his credit—sees this, does his usual dumpster diving, and Brosius comes back in 1998 with 19 Hrs, .300, .843 in 1998. A very good season—but actually not quite as well as he had done in 1996, in what was more of a pitcher's park (Oakland). There was no big change in his physique, no crazy numbers out of line with what had been his career thus far. And after that, as he moves into his 30s, he begins a decline into his retirement after 2001.
Tino Martinez had also been a steadily improving, up-and-coming slugger in Seattle. He'd hit 31 homers, with a .293 BA and .920 OPS there in 1995. His first year in NYC was considered something of a disappointment, despite 25 HRs, .292, .830.
He rebounded with a great 1997—44 HRs, .296, .948. But he never reached those numbers again, declining to 28 Hrs, .281, .860 in 1998, as he turned 30.
Again: reaches a certain height, c. age 28-29, gets older, declines. A very normal, pre-juice trajectory. (And his 28 HRs in 1998 led the club, another indication that the Yanks were not juicing THAT year.)
Thanks, Horace, for the Holiday cheer. Splendid team,and put so well.
ReplyDeleteJust thought: Brosius shoulda been called 'Am Brosius.'
Darryl, as always, was more complicated, thanks to his alcoholism, use of drugs that DON'T enhance performance, and general demons.
ReplyDeleteBut the reason Darryl hadn't hit since 1991, when he'd had a pretty good season at age 29, in LA, was that he'd been constantly injured or suspended for failing drug tests (again, of the non-performative variety).
Look at his games played: 43 in 1992, 32 in 1993, 29 in 1994, 32 in 1995.
In 1996 he was able to stay on the field a little more, and did much better: 11 homers, .262, .849, and a key role in the Yanks' playoff run that season.
Then, in 1997, another cocaine suspension: only 11 games.
Finally, in 1998, Darryl was able to keep himself together a little more, at age 36, and hit 24 homers. But even this wasn't some miracle, shape-shifting year: his BA was only .247, and his OPS, .896.
Dig deeper, and you find that he hit .298 in Yankee Stadium—and only .201 on the road. His OPS was .909 vs. righties—and only .802 vs. lefties.
In other words, as mostly a platooned, left-handed DH, he became pretty good at hitting righties in the Bronx. Hardly an indication of juicing, just a nice penumbra of performance in the twilight of a troubled career, in a specialized role.
I saw Darryl play during 1997 spring training. He was freaking jacked, truly enormous. He wasn't using the best stuff; the stuff that Clemens and Bonds used. But it probably extended his career by a few years;he played to age 37, but his last peak season was age 29.
ReplyDeleteHe never played a full season again after 29. And again, his performance didn't improve at all over the previous numbers. In fact, in most ways it declined: fewer homers, lower average, etc.—if was using anything, it was probably the PED equivalent of oregano.
ReplyDeleteAgain, he had a pretty good, partial 1998 when being used in specialty situations. That was about it.
Exactly, Hoss. Not all PEDs are the same. The stuff Clemens and Bonds used was absolutely amazing. They were both Hall of Famers already, but then they had second incredible HOF worthy extensions. BALCo really knew what they were doing.
ReplyDeleteFuck you Hal.
Didn't Chuck Knoblauch join the team in '98? I heard that he used a ton of supplements, whether they were p.e.d's I don't know. By the early '90s, p.e.d. use in baseball had already started. It does bear mentioning that baseball had no p.e.d. policy until quite recently, after the infamous anonymous test, which supposedly a high percentage of players failed. (And I note specifically, that David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez supposedly failed said test, not just A-Rod. But only A-Rod got skewered by the press. Ortiz and Ramirez sure seemed to live charmed lives; they could do no wrong.) Anyway, since MLB didn't even a policy in place during the Yankee dynasty of the late '90s, it really doesn't make any difference to me whether they used or not. It was sort of like the wild west back then, anything goes.
ReplyDeleteThe Hammer of God
You're right that it had already started, Hammer—probably by the late 1980s—and it did become ubiquitous, so who knows? And yes, Ortiz and Manny certainly did juice.
ReplyDelete(Actually, some of the Boston press, to its credit, got on them about it, but Big Papi was quickly forgiven. Ridiculously, he'll probably make the Hall, while A-Rod and Manny won't.)
So again, who really knows? But physically and statistically, nobody on the Yanks displayed PEDitis in 1998.
The Knobber, for one, had already witnessed a dramatic decline in his game the year before, with his BA dropping 50 points, from .341 to .291. It kept dropping in 1998, down to .265. He had a better year—really, his only good Yankee year—in 1999, but he declined swiftly again after that, and never did reach his Minnesota numbers.
Where he had been a great turf player in Minny, he got very interested in swinging for the fences in Yankee Stadium.
He would have made out very well with Super Happy Fun Ball in 2019, but at the time it was particularly stupid, since he was a right-hander. But then, the Knobber was never all that bright, poor thing.
Sweet, errant throwing, poor thing ...
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