World Series

Pitchers -

Luis Aponte

Brian Denman

Jim Dorsey

Joel Finch

Bruce Hurst

Keith Macwhorter

Bob Ojeda

Danny Parks

Chuck Rainey

Win Remmerswaal

Manny Sarmiento

Mike Smithson

Catchers -

Rich Gedman

Roger LaFrancois

John Lickert

Dave Schmidt

Infielders -

Marty Barrett

Wade Boggs

Ed Jurak

David Koza

Russ Quetti

Julio Valdez

Jim Wilson

Outfielders -

Sam Bowen

Lee Graham

Russell Laribee

Mike Ongarato

Chico Walker

Click on the 'Pawtucket-Rochester 33 inning game box score' link below to see the box score of the game.

No. Sanders played in one World Series, that being the 1992 Series for the Atlanta Braves. The Braves lost that Series to the Toronto Blue Jays, 4 games to 2. Sanders batted .533 with 8 hits in 15 at bats and had 5 stolen bases.

Jose Canseco of the Oakland Athletics in the 2nd inning of Game 1 of the 1988 World Series against the Los Angeles Dodgers. It was his second plate appearance ... he was hit by a pitch in the 1st inning.

Actually, three "cold" cities have hosted the Super Bowl: Pontiac, Michigan in 1982; Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1992 and Detroit, Michigan in 2006

The most strikeouts by a pitcher in a World Series game is 17 by Bob Gibson of the St. Louis Cardinals in Game 1 of the 1968 World Series against the Detroit Tigers.

Some of the players who have pitched for the New York Mets (either currently or in the past) are Billy Wagner, Darren O'Day, Casey Fossum, Fernando Nieve, Ken Takahashi, Pedro Feliciano, Johan Santana, Elmer Dessens, Francisco Rodriguez, Brian Stokes, Tobi Stoner, Nelson Figuroa, Pat Misch, Jonathan Niese, John Maine, Sean Green, Mike Pelfrey, Tim Redding, J.J. Putz, Bobby Parnell, Liv

The Chicago Cubs beat the Chicago White Sox 6-5 on June 18. 2009. It was a home game for the Cubs.

The Chicago Cubs won two World Series titles, 1907, and 1908.

The first World Series, held in 1903 between the Boston Americans and the Pittsburgh Pirates, was a best-of-nine competition. Boston (now known as the Red Sox) won the Series five games to three.

Clete Boyer for the New York Yankees and Gene Freeze for the Cincinnati Reds.

The Los Angeles Dodgers have won the World Series 7 Times out of 19 appearances as of 2020

2020, 1988, 1981, 1965, 1963, 1959, 1955

As of the end of the 2007 season, the Expos all time record (1969-2004) was 2755-2943. In three years, the Washington Nationals have a 225-261 record.

As of the 2008 season, the most hits in a World Series is 13 and was done by Bobby Richardson of the Yankees in 1964, Lou Brock of the Cardinals in 1968, and Marty Barrett of the Red Sox in 1986. All three players played a 7 game Series that year.

The World Series Starts in October after the playoffs are finished.

Game 5 of the 1949 World Series, played at Brooklyn's Ebbets Field, started in the afternoon but ended in enough darkness to necessitate the stadium lights being turned on in the ninth inning.

Game 4 of the 1971 Series, played at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh, was the first true World Series game night game.

Eight major league baseball teams have never won a World Series: the Seattle Mariners, the Texas Rangers, the Tampa Bay Rays, the Milwaukee Brewers, the Houston Astros, the Washington Nationals, the Colorado Rockies and the San Diego Padres.

Two of the teams -- Seattle and Washington -- have yet to appear in a World Series.

As of the start of the 2007 season, the New York Yankees have won 26 World Series championships, more than any other franchise and more than the combined number of titles won by the next three most successful clubs in the World Series. The St. Louis Cardinals have won 10 World Series and the Philadelphia/Oakland Athletics have won 9 World Series Titles. -------------------- The Yankees have been in 39 World Series. The second most World Series appearances is by the Dodgers with 18. The Giants and Cardinals have been in 17.

= Hall of Famers who never played in the World Series. = By Fong, Bobby

Publication: The Baseball Research Journal

Date: Thursday, January 1 2004

The Chicago Cubs' latest pennant near-miss continues to deny Sammy Sosa, a certain Hall of Famer, an appearance in the World Series. Sammy may yet share the dubious distinction of fellow Cub Ernie Banks, the best-known example of a Hall of Fame player who never played in the World Series. Actually, there have been 31 Cooperstown honorees with playing time since 1903, when the modern World Series was inaugurated, who never participated in the fall classic.

Seventeen of these players had major league experience prior to 1903. The following chart lists them and the number of years they played from 1903 on: Five players were 19th-century stars whose appearances from 1903 on were cursory. Jim O'Rourke and Dan Brouthers played for the 1904 New York Giants with the encouragement of John McGraw, O'Rourke suiting up for one game, Brouthers for two. Similarly, Sam Thompson appeared in eight games for the 1906 Detroit Tigers. Hugh Duffy and Hughie Jennings played occasionally after each had become a coach or manager, Duffy in 34 games over three seasons, and Jennings in 11 games between 1903 and 1918. Jennings did manage the 1907 to 1909 Tigers, who played in and lost three consecutive World Series.

Ed Delahanty was a regular with the 1903 Washington club, but his career was cut short by his mysterious death at Niagara Falls in the midst of the season. Kid Nichols, Jake Beckley, Jesse Burkett, and Joe Kelley played three to five seasons from 1903 on, but they were on the downside of their careers and on teams that did not win pennants.

By contrast, six players played at least half of their careers after 1903. Three, Addie Joss, Nap Lajoie, and Elmer Flick, were Cleveland teammates from 1902 to 1910. Despite their presence, the closest the club came to winning a pennant was 1908, when it finished a half-game behind the Tigers because Detroit was not required to make up a rainout.

Jack Chesbro suffered from bad timing: he jumped from the Pittsburgh Pirates to the New York Highlanders (later the Yankees) before the 1903 season, the year that the Pirates won the pennant and played in the first World Series. Then in 1904, Chesbro made the infamous wild pitch that cost the Highlanders a chance at the pennant on the last day of the season. His teammate that day was Wee Willie Keeler, who spent seven of his eight post-1902 seasons with the Highlanders, which would not appear in a World Series until 1921. Bobby Wallace played 16 years for the St. Louis Browns and Cardinals from 1903 on. The Cards played in their first World Series in 1926, the Browns in 1944, long after Wallace had retired.

Perhaps the most agonizing near miss, however, happened to Rube Waddell. He was the ace of the 1905 Philadelphia Athletics staff, going 26-5 to lead them to the American League pennant. Unfortunately, late in the season he got into a scuffle with a teammate and hurt his arm. He did not pitch in the Series as the A's lost to the Giants.

The Hall of Fame credentials of Joss, Lajoie, Flick, Chesbro, Waddell, and Wallace were largely compiled after the commencement of the modern World Series, and thus they represent the first wave of players whose careers were not capped by an appearance in the Fall Classic. More were to come.

Fourteen Hall of Famers played their entire careers in the modern era without appearing in the Series:

Ted Lyons and Luke Appling share with Ernie Banks the distinction of HOFers playing their entire careers with a club that never won the pennant. Lyons and Appling were also longtime teammates on the Chicago White Sox, which went 40 years between World Series appearances.

To date, the Chicago Cubs have gone 58 years since their last fall classic appearance in 1945. That lack of fortune affected not only Banks but also Fergie Jenkins and Billy Williams, longtime Cubs and teammates of Banks. Their trades to other clubs never made up for those years of futility with Chicago.

Similarly, Harry Heilmann spent 1,5 of his 17 years in the majors with the Detroit Tigers during a period when the club went 25 years between pennants. And Ralph Kiner spent eight seasons of his brief ten-year career with the Pittsburgh Pirates during a period when that franchise went 33 years between pennants.

By contrast, from 1929 to 1947 Rick Ferrell played for the Browns, Red Sox, and Senators. Each club won one pennant during this period, but Ferrell was never on the right team when it cashed in. George Ken played for five teams from 1943 to 1957, but the nearest he ever came to a World Series were three second-place finishes with Detroit, finishing no closer than three games out in 1950.

George Sisler came closest to the Series in 1922, when the St. Louis Browns finished one game behind the New York Yankees. Jim Banning was a member of the 1964 Philadelphia Phillies, thought to be locks for the pennant until their late-season collapse.

With the introduction of division play in 1969, players like Rod Carew, Phil Niekro, Billy Williams, and Gaylord Perry actually made it into the post-season, but Carew was on the losing side in four League Championship Series, Niekro on two, and Williams and Perry on one apiece.

Gaylord Perry's nearest miss, however, was not in the LCS. In his rookie season of 1962, the San Francisco Giants won the pennant and met the Yankees in the World Series. Gaylord had spent most of the season in the minors before his call-up in September. He contributed three wins to the San Francisco effort that year and played a part in helping the Giants overtake the Dodgers, with whom the Giants finished in a tie at the end of the regular season before beating them in a three-game playoff. But Perry had been called up too late to make the post-season roster! He pitched batting practice during the Series, but he was not eligible to play. Perhaps even Ernie Banks would have preferred not coming that close.

RELATED ARTICLE: A World series without Hall-of-Famers? by Jean-Pierre Caillault

The flip-side of Bobby Fong's article is all of the World Series in which no Hall of Famer participated. The first occurrence of this came in the 1890 Series between the NL champion Brooklyn Bridegrooms and the American Association champion Louisville Colonels. The Players' League champion of 1890, the Boston Reds, were not invited to participate in the Series; if they had, then their Hall of Fame triumvirate of Dan Brouthers, Charlie Radbourn, and King Kelly would have prevented 1890 from having this dubious distinction.

Other World Series with no Hall of Fame players are recent ones in which most players are not yet eligible for election. The Series with the lowest chance of having a participant end up in the Hall was the 1997 edition between the Marlins and Indians. The best candidates from those teams were Gary Sheffield, Manny Ramirez, Jim Thome, and Kevin Brown, none of whom is a certainty.

If we examine World Series Champions only, then the first Championship team not to have anyone in the Hall was the 1981 Dodgers (the 1890 WS ended in a tie, three wins apiece). The 1984 Tigers (Jack Morris?), the 1988 Dodgers (Orel Hershiser?), 1997 Marlins, the 1998 Yankees (Derek Jeter?, Mariano Rivera?), and the 2002 Angels (?) are excellent candidates to join the 1981 Dodgers on this list.

Excluding the most recent Series, there have been 11 Champions with only one player enshrined in Cooperstown--the winners of the very first World Series in 1884, the Providence Grays, with Radbourn as their sole representative; the 1886 St. Louis Browns (Charley Comiskey); the 1919 Reds (Edd Roush); the 1940 Reds (Ernie Lombardi); the 1943 Yankees (Bill Dickey); the 1944 Cardinals (Start Musial); the 1979 Pirates (Willie Stargell); the 1980 Cardinals (Ozzie Smith); the 1985 Royais (George Brett); the 1986 Mets (Gary Carter); and the 1987 Twins (Kirby Puckett).

The Championship team with the most Hall of Famers was the 1932 Yankees with nine (Earl Combs, Dickey, Lou Gehrig, Lefty Gomez, Tony Lazzeri, Herb Pennock, Red Ruffing, Babe Ruth, and Joe Sewell). There have been seven Champions with six Hall of Famers who participated in the World Series: the 1888 and 1889 New York Giants (Roger Connor, Buck Ewing, Tim Keefe, Jim O'Rourke, John Ward, and Mickey Welch); the 1927 Yankees (Combs, Gehrig, Waite Hoyt, Lazzeri, Pennock, and Ruth), the 1928 Yankees (Combs, Leo Durocher, Gehrig, Hoyt, Lazzeri, and Ruth); the 1934 Cardinals (Dizzy Dean, Durocher, Frankie Frisch, Jesse Haines, Joe Medwick, and Dazzy Vance); and the 1936 and 1937 Yankees (Dickey, Joe DiMaggio, Gehrig, Gomez, Lazzeri, and Ruffing).

The most Hall of Fame players on a World Series losing team was seven, infamously achieved by the 1924 Giants (Frisch, Travis Jackson, George Kelly, Fred Lindstrom, Bill Terry, Hack Wilson, and Ross Youngs).

And the most Cooperstown inductees from both teams in one World Series occurred in 1932 when the Chicago Cubs added four (Kiki Cuyler, Burleigh Grimes, Gabby Hartnett, and Billy Herman) to the Yankees' nine to make a likely never-to-be-broken record of 13.

Table 1. Years played, from 1903 on

P Jack Chesbro 7 * Addie Joss 8 * Kid Nichols 3 Rube Waddell 8 * 1B Jake Beckley 5 Dan Brouthers 1 ([dagger]) 2B Nap Lajoie 14 * SS Hughie Jennings 5 ([dagger]) Bobby Wallace 16 * 0F Jesse Burkett 3 Ed Delahanty 1 Hugh Duffy 3 ([dagger]) Elmer Flick 8 * Willie Keeler 8 Joe Kelley 5 Jim O'Rourke 1 ([dagger]) Sam Thompson 1 ([dagger]) Played at least half of major league career from 1903 on Willie Keeler 8 Joe Kelley 5 Jim O'Rourke 1 ([dagger]) Sam Thompson 1 ([dagger]) * Played at least half of major league career from 1903 on ([dagger]) Made only occasional appearances from 1903 on Table 2. Years played P Jim Bunning 17 Ferguson Jenkins 19 Ted Lyons 21 Phil Niekro 24 Gaylord Perry 22 C Rick Ferrell 18 1B George Sisler 15 2B Rod Carew 19 3B George Kell 15 SS Luke Appling 20 Ernie Banks 19 0F Harry Heilmann 17 Ralph Kiner 10 Billy Williams 18 A member of SABR since 1984, BOBBY FONG is president of Butler University, Indianapolis, Indiana.

The Chicago Cubs' latest pennant near-miss continues to deny Sammy Sosa, a certain Hall of Famer, an appearance in the World Series. Sammy may yet share the dubious distinction of fellow Cub Ernie Banks, the best-known example of a Hall of Fame player who never played in the World Series. Actually, there have been 31 Cooperstown honorees with playing time since 1903, when the modern World Series was inaugurated, who never participated in the fall classic. Seventeen of these players had major league experience prior to 1903. The following chart lists them and the number of years they played from 1903 on: Five players were 19th-century stars whose appearances from 1903 on were cursory. Jim O'Rourke and Dan Brouthers played for the 1904 New York Giants with the encouragement of John McGraw, O'Rourke suiting up for one game, Brouthers for two. Similarly, Sam Thompson appeared in eight games for the 1906 Detroit Tigers. Hugh Duffy and Hughie Jennings played occasionally after each had become a coach or manager, Duffy in 34 games over three seasons, and Jennings in 11 games between 1903 and 1918. Jennings did manage the 1907 to 1909 Tigers, who played in and lost three consecutive World Series. Ed Delahanty was a regular with the 1903 Washington club, but his career was cut short by his mysterious death at Niagara Falls in the midst of the season. Kid Nichols, Jake Beckley, Jesse Burkett, and Joe Kelley played three to five seasons from 1903 on, but they were on the downside of their careers and on teams that did not win pennants. By contrast, six players played at least half of their careers after 1903. Three, Addie Joss, Nap Lajoie, and Elmer Flick, were Cleveland teammates from 1902 to 1910. Despite their presence, the closest the club came to winning a pennant was 1908, when it finished a half-game behind the Tigers because Detroit was not required to make up a rainout. Jack Chesbro suffered from bad timing: he jumped from the Pittsburgh Pirates to the New York Highlanders (later the Yankees) before the 1903 season, the year that the Pirates won the pennant and played in the first World Series. Then in 1904, Chesbro made the infamous wild pitch that cost the Highlanders a chance at the pennant on the last day of the season. His teammate that day was Wee Willie Keeler, who spent seven of his eight post-1902 seasons with the Highlanders, which would not appear in a World Series until 1921. Bobby Wallace played 16 years for the St. Louis Browns and Cardinals from 1903 on. The Cards played in their first World Series in 1926, the Browns in 1944, long after Wallace had retired. Perhaps the most agonizing near miss, however, happened to Rube Waddell. He was the ace of the 1905 Philadelphia Athletics staff, going 26-5 to lead them to the American League pennant. Unfortunately, late in the season he got into a scuffle with a teammate and hurt his arm. He did not pitch in the Series as the A's lost to the Giants. The Hall of Fame credentials of Joss, Lajoie, Flick, Chesbro, Waddell, and Wallace were largely compiled after the commencement of the modern World Series, and thus they represent the first wave of players whose careers were not capped by an appearance in the Fall Classic. More were to come. Fourteen Hall of Famers played their entire careers in the modern era without appearing in the Series: Ted Lyons and Luke Appling share with Ernie Banks the distinction of HOFers playing their entire careers with a club that never won the pennant. Lyons and Appling were also longtime teammates on the Chicago White Sox, which went 40 years between World Series appearances. To date, the Chicago Cubs have gone 58 years since their last fall classic appearance in 1945. That lack of fortune affected not only Banks but also Fergie Jenkins and Billy Williams, longtime Cubs and teammates of Banks. Their trades to other clubs never made up for those years of futility with Chicago. Similarly, Harry Heilmann spent 1,5 of his 17 years in the majors with the Detroit Tigers during a period when the club went 25 years between pennants. And Ralph Kiner spent eight seasons of his brief ten-year career with the Pittsburgh Pirates during a period when that franchise went 33 years between pennants. By contrast, from 1929 to 1947 Rick Ferrell played for the Browns, Red Sox, and Senators. Each club won one pennant during this period, but Ferrell was never on the right team when it cashed in. George Ken played for five teams from 1943 to 1957, but the nearest he ever came to a World Series were three second-place finishes with Detroit, finishing no closer than three games out in 1950. George Sisler came closest to the Series in 1922, when the St. Louis Browns finished one game behind the New York Yankees. Jim Banning was a member of the 1964 Philadelphia Phillies, thought to be locks for the pennant until their late-season collapse. With the introduction of division play in 1969, players like Rod Carew, Phil Niekro, Billy Williams, and Gaylord Perry actually made it into the post-season, but Carew was on the losing side in four League Championship Series, Niekro on two, and Williams and Perry on one apiece. Gaylord Perry's nearest miss, however, was not in the LCS. In his rookie season of 1962, the San Francisco Giants won the pennant and met the Yankees in the World Series. Gaylord had spent most of the season in the minors before his call-up in September. He contributed three wins to the San Francisco effort that year and played a part in helping the Giants overtake the Dodgers, with whom the Giants finished in a tie at the end of the regular season before beating them in a three-game playoff. But Perry had been called up too late to make the post-season roster! He pitched batting practice during the Series, but he was not eligible to play. Perhaps even Ernie Banks would have preferred not coming that close. RELATED ARTICLE: A World series without Hall-of-Famers? by Jean-Pierre Caillault The flip-side of Bobby Fong's article is all of the World Series in which no Hall of Famer participated. The first occurrence of this came in the 1890 Series between the NL champion Brooklyn Bridegrooms and the American Association champion Louisville Colonels. The Players' League champion of 1890, the Boston Reds, were not invited to participate in the Series; if they had, then their Hall of Fame triumvirate of Dan Brouthers, Charlie Radbourn, and King Kelly would have prevented 1890 from having this dubious distinction. Other World Series with no Hall of Fame players are recent ones in which most players are not yet eligible for election. The Series with the lowest chance of having a participant end up in the Hall was the 1997 edition between the Marlins and Indians. The best candidates from those teams were Gary Sheffield, Manny Ramirez, Jim Thome, and Kevin Brown, none of whom is a certainty. If we examine World Series Champions only, then the first Championship team not to have anyone in the Hall was the 1981 Dodgers (the 1890 WS ended in a tie, three wins apiece). The 1984 Tigers (Jack Morris?), the 1988 Dodgers (Orel Hershiser?), 1997 Marlins, the 1998 Yankees (Derek Jeter?, Mariano Rivera?), and the 2002 Angels (?) are excellent candidates to join the 1981 Dodgers on this list. Excluding the most recent Series, there have been 11 Champions with only one player enshrined in Cooperstown--the winners of the very first World Series in 1884, the Providence Grays, with Radbourn as their sole representative; the 1886 St. Louis Browns (Charley Comiskey); the 1919 Reds (Edd Roush); the 1940 Reds (Ernie Lombardi); the 1943 Yankees (Bill Dickey); the 1944 Cardinals (Start Musial); the 1979 Pirates (Willie Stargell); the 1980 Cardinals (Ozzie Smith); the 1985 Royais (George Brett); the 1986 Mets (Gary Carter); and the 1987 Twins (Kirby Puckett). The Championship team with the most Hall of Famers was the 1932 Yankees with nine (Earl Combs, Dickey, Lou Gehrig, Lefty Gomez, Tony Lazzeri, Herb Pennock, Red Ruffing, Babe Ruth, and Joe Sewell). There have been seven Champions with six Hall of Famers who participated in the World Series: the 1888 and 1889 New York Giants (Roger Connor, Buck Ewing, Tim Keefe, Jim O'Rourke, John Ward, and Mickey Welch); the 1927 Yankees (Combs, Gehrig, Waite Hoyt, Lazzeri, Pennock, and Ruth), the 1928 Yankees (Combs, Leo Durocher, Gehrig, Hoyt, Lazzeri, and Ruth); the 1934 Cardinals (Dizzy Dean, Durocher, Frankie Frisch, Jesse Haines, Joe Medwick, and Dazzy Vance); and the 1936 and 1937 Yankees (Dickey, Joe DiMaggio, Gehrig, Gomez, Lazzeri, and Ruffing). The most Hall of Fame players on a World Series losing team was seven, infamously achieved by the 1924 Giants (Frisch, Travis Jackson, George Kelly, Fred Lindstrom, Bill Terry, Hack Wilson, and Ross Youngs). And the most Cooperstown inductees from both teams in one World Series occurred in 1932 when the Chicago Cubs added four (Kiki Cuyler, Burleigh Grimes, Gabby Hartnett, and Billy Herman) to the Yankees' nine to make a likely never-to-be-broken record of 13. Table 1. Years played, from 1903 on P Jack Chesbro 7 * Addie Joss 8 * Kid Nichols 3 Rube Waddell 8 * 1B Jake Beckley 5 Dan Brouthers 1 ([dagger]) 2B Nap Lajoie 14 * SS Hughie Jennings 5 ([dagger]) Bobby Wallace 16 * 0F Jesse Burkett 3 Ed Delahanty 1 Hugh Duffy 3 ([dagger]) Elmer Flick 8 * Willie Keeler 8 Joe Kelley 5 Jim O'Rourke 1 ([dagger]) Sam Thompson 1 ([dagger]) Played at least half of major league career from 1903 on Willie Keeler 8 Joe Kelley 5 Jim O'Rourke 1 ([dagger]) Sam Thompson 1 ([dagger]) * Played at least half of major league career from 1903 on ([dagger]) Made only occasional appearances from 1903 on Table 2. Years played P Jim Bunning 17 Ferguson Jenkins 19 Ted Lyons 21 Phil Niekro 24 Gaylord Perry 22 C Rick Ferrell 18 1B George Sisler 15 2B Rod Carew 19 3B George Kell 15 SS Luke Appling 20 Ernie Banks 19 0F Harry Heilmann 17 Ralph Kiner 10 Billy Williams 18 A member of SABR since 1984, BOBBY FONG is president of Butler University, Indianapolis, Indiana.

The Chicago Cubs' latest pennant near-miss continues to deny Sammy Sosa, a certain Hall of Famer, an appearance in the World Series. Sammy may yet share the dubious distinction of fellow Cub Ernie Banks, the best-known example of a Hall of Fame player who never played in the World Series. Actually, there have been 31 Cooperstown honorees with playing time since 1903, when the modern World Series was inaugurated, who never participated in the fall classic. Seventeen of these players had major league experience prior to 1903. The following chart lists them and the number of years they played from 1903 on: Five players were 19th-century stars whose appearances from 1903 on were cursory. Jim O'Rourke and Dan Brouthers played for the 1904 New York Giants with the encouragement of John McGraw, O'Rourke suiting up for one game, Brouthers for two. Similarly, Sam Thompson appeared in eight games for the 1906 Detroit Tigers. Hugh Duffy and Hughie Jennings played occasionally after each had become a coach or manager, Duffy in 34 games over three seasons, and Jennings in 11 games between 1903 and 1918. Jennings did manage the 1907 to 1909 Tigers, who played in and lost three consecutive World Series. Ed Delahanty was a regular with the 1903 Washington club, but his career was cut short by his mysterious death at Niagara Falls in the midst of the season. Kid Nichols, Jake Beckley, Jesse Burkett, and Joe Kelley played three to five seasons from 1903 on, but they were on the downside of their careers and on teams that did not win pennants. By contrast, six players played at least half of their careers after 1903. Three, Addie Joss, Nap Lajoie, and Elmer Flick, were Cleveland teammates from 1902 to 1910. Despite their presence, the closest the club came to winning a pennant was 1908, when it finished a half-game behind the Tigers because Detroit was not required to make up a rainout. Jack Chesbro suffered from bad timing: he jumped from the Pittsburgh Pirates to the New York Highlanders (later the Yankees) before the 1903 season, the year that the Pirates won the pennant and played in the first World Series. Then in 1904, Chesbro made the infamous wild pitch that cost the Highlanders a chance at the pennant on the last day of the season. His teammate that day was Wee Willie Keeler, who spent seven of his eight post-1902 seasons with the Highlanders, which would not appear in a World Series until 1921. Bobby Wallace played 16 years for the St. Louis Browns and Cardinals from 1903 on. The Cards played in their first World Series in 1926, the Browns in 1944, long after Wallace had retired. Perhaps the most agonizing near miss, however, happened to Rube Waddell. He was the ace of the 1905 Philadelphia Athletics staff, going 26-5 to lead them to the American League pennant. Unfortunately, late in the season he got into a scuffle with a teammate and hurt his arm. He did not pitch in the Series as the A's lost to the Giants. The Hall of Fame credentials of Joss, Lajoie, Flick, Chesbro, Waddell, and Wallace were largely compiled after the commencement of the modern World Series, and thus they represent the first wave of players whose careers were not capped by an appearance in the Fall Classic. More were to come. Fourteen Hall of Famers played their entire careers in the modern era without appearing in the Series: Ted Lyons and Luke Appling share with Ernie Banks the distinction of HOFers playing their entire careers with a club that never won the pennant. Lyons and Appling were also longtime teammates on the Chicago White Sox, which went 40 years between World Series appearances. To date, the Chicago Cubs have gone 58 years since their last fall classic appearance in 1945. That lack of fortune affected not only Banks but also Fergie Jenkins and Billy Williams, longtime Cubs and teammates of Banks. Their trades to other clubs never made up for those years of futility with Chicago. Similarly, Harry Heilmann spent 1,5 of his 17 years in the majors with the Detroit Tigers during a period when the club went 25 years between pennants. And Ralph Kiner spent eight seasons of his brief ten-year career with the Pittsburgh Pirates during a period when that franchise went 33 years between pennants. By contrast, from 1929 to 1947 Rick Ferrell played for the Browns, Red Sox, and Senators. Each club won one pennant during this period, but Ferrell was never on the right team when it cashed in. George Ken played for five teams from 1943 to 1957, but the nearest he ever came to a World Series were three second-place finishes with Detroit, finishing no closer than three games out in 1950. George Sisler came closest to the Series in 1922, when the St. Louis Browns finished one game behind the New York Yankees. Jim Banning was a member of the 1964 Philadelphia Phillies, thought to be locks for the pennant until their late-season collapse. With the introduction of division play in 1969, players like Rod Carew, Phil Niekro, Billy Williams, and Gaylord Perry actually made it into the post-season, but Carew was on the losing side in four League Championship Series, Niekro on two, and Williams and Perry on one apiece. Gaylord Perry's nearest miss, however, was not in the LCS. In his rookie season of 1962, the San Francisco Giants won the pennant and met the Yankees in the World Series. Gaylord had spent most of the season in the minors before his call-up in September. He contributed three wins to the San Francisco effort that year and played a part in helping the Giants overtake the Dodgers, with whom the Giants finished in a tie at the end of the regular season before beating them in a three-game playoff. But Perry had been called up too late to make the post-season roster! He pitched batting practice during the Series, but he was not eligible to play. Perhaps even Ernie Banks would have preferred not coming that close. RELATED ARTICLE: A World series without Hall-of-Famers? by Jean-Pierre Caillault The flip-side of Bobby Fong's article is all of the World Series in which no Hall of Famer participated. The first occurrence of this came in the 1890 Series between the NL champion Brooklyn Bridegrooms and the American Association champion Louisville Colonels. The Players' League champion of 1890, the Boston Reds, were not invited to participate in the Series; if they had, then their Hall of Fame triumvirate of Dan Brouthers, Charlie Radbourn, and King Kelly would have prevented 1890 from having this dubious distinction. Other World Series with no Hall of Fame players are recent ones in which most players are not yet eligible for election. The Series with the lowest chance of having a participant end up in the Hall was the 1997 edition between the Marlins and Indians. The best candidates from those teams were Gary Sheffield, Manny Ramirez, Jim Thome, and Kevin Brown, none of whom is a certainty. If we examine World Series Champions only, then the first Championship team not to have anyone in the Hall was the 1981 Dodgers (the 1890 WS ended in a tie, three wins apiece). The 1984 Tigers (Jack Morris?), the 1988 Dodgers (Orel Hershiser?), 1997 Marlins, the 1998 Yankees (Derek Jeter?, Mariano Rivera?), and the 2002 Angels (?) are excellent candidates to join the 1981 Dodgers on this list. Excluding the most recent Series, there have been 11 Champions with only one player enshrined in Cooperstown--the winners of the very first World Series in 1884, the Providence Grays, with Radbourn as their sole representative; the 1886 St. Louis Browns (Charley Comiskey); the 1919 Reds (Edd Roush); the 1940 Reds (Ernie Lombardi); the 1943 Yankees (Bill Dickey); the 1944 Cardinals (Start Musial); the 1979 Pirates (Willie Stargell); the 1980 Cardinals (Ozzie Smith); the 1985 Royais (George Brett); the 1986 Mets (Gary Carter); and the 1987 Twins (Kirby Puckett). The Championship team with the most Hall of Famers was the 1932 Yankees with nine (Earl Combs, Dickey, Lou Gehrig, Lefty Gomez, Tony Lazzeri, Herb Pennock, Red Ruffing, Babe Ruth, and Joe Sewell). There have been seven Champions with six Hall of Famers who participated in the World Series: the 1888 and 1889 New York Giants (Roger Connor, Buck Ewing, Tim Keefe, Jim O'Rourke, John Ward, and Mickey Welch); the 1927 Yankees (Combs, Gehrig, Waite Hoyt, Lazzeri, Pennock, and Ruth), the 1928 Yankees (Combs, Leo Durocher, Gehrig, Hoyt, Lazzeri, and Ruth); the 1934 Cardinals (Dizzy Dean, Durocher, Frankie Frisch, Jesse Haines, Joe Medwick, and Dazzy Vance); and the 1936 and 1937 Yankees (Dickey, Joe DiMaggio, Gehrig, Gomez, Lazzeri, and Ruffing). The most Hall of Fame players on a World Series losing team was seven, infamously achieved by the 1924 Giants (Frisch, Travis Jackson, George Kelly, Fred Lindstrom, Bill Terry, Hack Wilson, and Ross Youngs). And the most Cooperstown inductees from both teams in one World Series occurred in 1932 when the Chicago Cubs added four (Kiki Cuyler, Burleigh Grimes, Gabby Hartnett, and Billy Herman) to the Yankees' nine to make a likely never-to-be-broken record of 13. Table 1. Years played, from 1903 on P Jack Chesbro 7 * Addie Joss 8 * Kid Nichols 3 Rube Waddell 8 * 1B Jake Beckley 5 Dan Brouthers 1 ([dagger]) 2B Nap Lajoie 14 * SS Hughie Jennings 5 ([dagger]) Bobby Wallace 16 * 0F Jesse Burkett 3 Ed Delahanty 1 Hugh Duffy 3 ([dagger]) Elmer Flick 8 * Willie Keeler 8 Joe Kelley 5 Jim O'Rourke 1 ([dagger]) Sam Thompson 1 ([dagger]) Played at least half of major league career from 1903 on Willie Keeler 8 Joe Kelley 5 Jim O'Rourke 1 ([dagger]) Sam Thompson 1 ([dagger]) * Played at least half of major league career from 1903 on ([dagger]) Made only occasional appearances from 1903 on Table 2. Years played P Jim Bunning 17 Ferguson Jenkins 19 Ted Lyons 21 Phil Niekro 24 Gaylord Perry 22 C Rick Ferrell 18 1B George Sisler 15 2B Rod Carew 19 3B George Kell 15 SS Luke Appling 20 Ernie Banks 19 0F Harry Heilmann 17 Ralph Kiner 10 Billy Williams 18 A member of SABR since 1984, BOBBY FONG is president of Butler University, Indianapolis, Indiana.

The Chicago Cubs' latest pennant near-miss continues to deny Sammy Sosa, a certain Hall of Famer, an appearance in the World Series. Sammy may yet share the dubious distinction of fellow Cub Ernie Banks, the best-known example of a Hall of Fame player who never played in the World Series. Actually, there have been 31 Cooperstown honorees with playing time since 1903, when the modern World Series was inaugurated, who never participated in the fall classic. Seventeen of these players had major league experience prior to 1903. The following chart lists them and the number of years they played from 1903 on: Five players were 19th-century stars whose appearances from 1903 on were cursory. Jim O'Rourke and Dan Brouthers played for the 1904 New York Giants with the encouragement of John McGraw, O'Rourke suiting up for one game, Brouthers for two. Similarly, Sam Thompson appeared in eight games for the 1906 Detroit Tigers. Hugh Duffy and Hughie Jennings played occasionally after each had become a coach or manager, Duffy in 34 games over three seasons, and Jennings in 11 games between 1903 and 1918. Jennings did manage the 1907 to 1909 Tigers, who played in and lost three consecutive World Series. Ed Delahanty was a regular with the 1903 Washington club, but his career was cut short by his mysterious death at Niagara Falls in the midst of the season. Kid Nichols, Jake Beckley, Jesse Burkett, and Joe Kelley played three to five seasons from 1903 on, but they were on the downside of their careers and on teams that did not win pennants. By contrast, six players played at least half of their careers after 1903. Three, Addie Joss, Nap Lajoie, and Elmer Flick, were Cleveland teammates from 1902 to 1910. Despite their presence, the closest the club came to winning a pennant was 1908, when it finished a half-game behind the Tigers because Detroit was not required to make up a rainout. Jack Chesbro suffered from bad timing: he jumped from the Pittsburgh Pirates to the New York Highlanders (later the Yankees) before the 1903 season, the year that the Pirates won the pennant and played in the first World Series. Then in 1904, Chesbro made the infamous wild pitch that cost the Highlanders a chance at the pennant on the last day of the season. His teammate that day was Wee Willie Keeler, who spent seven of his eight post-1902 seasons with the Highlanders, which would not appear in a World Series until 1921. Bobby Wallace played 16 years for the St. Louis Browns and Cardinals from 1903 on. The Cards played in their first World Series in 1926, the Browns in 1944, long after Wallace had retired. Perhaps the most agonizing near miss, however, happened to Rube Waddell. He was the ace of the 1905 Philadelphia Athletics staff, going 26-5 to lead them to the American League pennant. Unfortunately, late in the season he got into a scuffle with a teammate and hurt his arm. He did not pitch in the Series as the A's lost to the Giants. The Hall of Fame credentials of Joss, Lajoie, Flick, Chesbro, Waddell, and Wallace were largely compiled after the commencement of the modern World Series, and thus they represent the first wave of players whose careers were not capped by an appearance in the Fall Classic. More were to come. Fourteen Hall of Famers played their entire careers in the modern era without appearing in the Series: Ted Lyons and Luke Appling share with Ernie Banks the distinction of HOFers playing their entire careers with a club that never won the pennant. Lyons and Appling were also longtime teammates on the Chicago White Sox, which went 40 years between World Series appearances. To date, the Chicago Cubs have gone 58 years since their last fall classic appearance in 1945. That lack of fortune affected not only Banks but also Fergie Jenkins and Billy Williams, longtime Cubs and teammates of Banks. Their trades to other clubs never made up for those years of futility with Chicago. Similarly, Harry Heilmann spent 1,5 of his 17 years in the majors with the Detroit Tigers during a period when the club went 25 years between pennants. And Ralph Kiner spent eight seasons of his brief ten-year career with the Pittsburgh Pirates during a period when that franchise went 33 years between pennants. By contrast, from 1929 to 1947 Rick Ferrell played for the Browns, Red Sox, and Senators. Each club won one pennant during this period, but Ferrell was never on the right team when it cashed in. George Ken played for five teams from 1943 to 1957, but the nearest he ever came to a World Series were three second-place finishes with Detroit, finishing no closer than three games out in 1950. George Sisler came closest to the Series in 1922, when the St. Louis Browns finished one game behind the New York Yankees. Jim Banning was a member of the 1964 Philadelphia Phillies, thought to be locks for the pennant until their late-season collapse. With the introduction of division play in 1969, players like Rod Carew, Phil Niekro, Billy Williams, and Gaylord Perry actually made it into the post-season, but Carew was on the losing side in four League Championship Series, Niekro on two, and Williams and Perry on one apiece. Gaylord Perry's nearest miss, however, was not in the LCS. In his rookie season of 1962, the San Francisco Giants won the pennant and met the Yankees in the World Series. Gaylord had spent most of the season in the minors before his call-up in September. He contributed three wins to the San Francisco effort that year and played a part in helping the Giants overtake the Dodgers, with whom the Giants finished in a tie at the end of the regular season before beating them in a three-game playoff. But Perry had been called up too late to make the post-season roster! He pitched batting practice during the Series, but he was not eligible to play. Perhaps even Ernie Banks would have preferred not coming that close. RELATED ARTICLE: A World series without Hall-of-Famers? by Jean-Pierre Caillault The flip-side of Bobby Fong's article is all of the World Series in which no Hall of Famer participated. The first occurrence of this came in the 1890 Series between the NL champion Brooklyn Bridegrooms and the American Association champion Louisville Colonels. The Players' League champion of 1890, the Boston Reds, were not invited to participate in the Series; if they had, then their Hall of Fame triumvirate of Dan Brouthers, Charlie Radbourn, and King Kelly would have prevented 1890 from having this dubious distinction. Other World Series with no Hall of Fame players are recent ones in which most players are not yet eligible for election. The Series with the lowest chance of having a participant end up in the Hall was the 1997 edition between the Marlins and Indians. The best candidates from those teams were Gary Sheffield, Manny Ramirez, Jim Thome, and Kevin Brown, none of whom is a certainty. If we examine World Series Champions only, then the first Championship team not to have anyone in the Hall was the 1981 Dodgers (the 1890 WS ended in a tie, three wins apiece). The 1984 Tigers (Jack Morris?), the 1988 Dodgers (Orel Hershiser?), 1997 Marlins, the 1998 Yankees (Derek Jeter?, Mariano Rivera?), and the 2002 Angels (?) are excellent candidates to join the 1981 Dodgers on this list. Excluding the most recent Series, there have been 11 Champions with only one player enshrined in Cooperstown--the winners of the very first World Series in 1884, the Providence Grays, with Radbourn as their sole representative; the 1886 St. Louis Browns (Charley Comiskey); the 1919 Reds (Edd Roush); the 1940 Reds (Ernie Lombardi); the 1943 Yankees (Bill Dickey); the 1944 Cardinals (Start Musial); the 1979 Pirates (Willie Stargell); the 1980 Cardinals (Ozzie Smith); the 1985 Royais (George Brett); the 1986 Mets (Gary Carter); and the 1987 Twins (Kirby Puckett). The Championship team with the most Hall of Famers was the 1932 Yankees with nine (Earl Combs, Dickey, Lou Gehrig, Lefty Gomez, Tony Lazzeri, Herb Pennock, Red Ruffing, Babe Ruth, and Joe Sewell). There have been seven Champions with six Hall of Famers who participated in the World Series: the 1888 and 1889 New York Giants (Roger Connor, Buck Ewing, Tim Keefe, Jim O'Rourke, John Ward, and Mickey Welch); the 1927 Yankees (Combs, Gehrig, Waite Hoyt, Lazzeri, Pennock, and Ruth), the 1928 Yankees (Combs, Leo Durocher, Gehrig, Hoyt, Lazzeri, and Ruth); the 1934 Cardinals (Dizzy Dean, Durocher, Frankie Frisch, Jesse Haines, Joe Medwick, and Dazzy Vance); and the 1936 and 1937 Yankees (Dickey, Joe DiMaggio, Gehrig, Gomez, Lazzeri, and Ruffing). The most Hall of Fame players on a World Series losing team was seven, infamously achieved by the 1924 Giants (Frisch, Travis Jackson, George Kelly, Fred Lindstrom, Bill Terry, Hack Wilson, and Ross Youngs). And the most Cooperstown inductees from both teams in one World Series occurred in 1932 when the Chicago Cubs added four (Kiki Cuyler, Burleigh Grimes, Gabby Hartnett, and Billy Herman) to the Yankees' nine to make a likely never-to-be-broken record of 13. Table 1. Years played, from 1903 on P Jack Chesbro 7 * Addie Joss 8 * Kid Nichols 3 Rube Waddell 8 * 1B Jake Beckley 5 Dan Brouthers 1 ([dagger]) 2B Nap Lajoie 14 * SS Hughie Jennings 5 ([dagger]) Bobby Wallace 16 * 0F Jesse Burkett 3 Ed Delahanty 1 Hugh Duffy 3 ([dagger]) Elmer Flick 8 * Willie Keeler 8 Joe Kelley 5 Jim O'Rourke 1 ([dagger]) Sam Thompson 1 ([dagger]) Played at least half of major league career from 1903 on Willie Keeler 8 Joe Kelley 5 Jim O'Rourke 1 ([dagger]) Sam Thompson 1 ([dagger]) * Played at least half of major league career from 1903 on ([dagger]) Made only occasional appearances from 1903 on Table 2. Years played P Jim Bunning 17 Ferguson Jenkins 19 Ted Lyons 21 Phil Niekro 24 Gaylord Perry 22 C Rick Ferrell 18 1B George Sisler 15 2B Rod Carew 19 3B George Kell 15 SS Luke Appling 20 Ernie Banks 19 0F Harry Heilmann 17 Ralph Kiner 10 Billy Williams 18 A member of SABR since 1984, BOBBY FONG is president of Butler University, Indianapolis, Indiana.

The Chicago Cubs' latest pennant near-miss continues to deny Sammy Sosa, a certain Hall of Famer, an appearance in the World Series. Sammy may yet share the dubious distinction of fellow Cub Ernie Banks, the best-known example of a Hall of Fame player who never played in the World Series. Actually, there have been 31 Cooperstown honorees with playing time since 1903, when the modern World Series was inaugurated, who never participated in the fall classic. Seventeen of these players had major league experience prior to 1903. The following chart lists them and the number of years they played from 1903 on: Five players were 19th-century stars whose appearances from 1903 on were cursory. Jim O'Rourke and Dan Brouthers played for the 1904 New York Giants with the encouragement of John McGraw, O'Rourke suiting up for one game, Brouthers for two. Similarly, Sam Thompson appeared in eight games for the 1906 Detroit Tigers. Hugh Duffy and Hughie Jennings played occasionally after each had become a coach or manager, Duffy in 34 games over three seasons, and Jennings in 11 games between 1903 and 1918. Jennings did manage the 1907 to 1909 Tigers, who played in and lost three consecutive World Series. Ed Delahanty was a regular with the 1903 Washington club, but his career was cut short by his mysterious death at Niagara Falls in the midst of the season. Kid Nichols, Jake Beckley, Jesse Burkett, and Joe Kelley played three to five seasons from 1903 on, but they were on the downside of their careers and on teams that did not win pennants. By contrast, six players played at least half of their careers after 1903. Three, Addie Joss, Nap Lajoie, and Elmer Flick, were Cleveland teammates from 1902 to 1910. Despite their presence, the closest the club came to winning a pennant was 1908, when it finished a half-game behind the Tigers because Detroit was not required to make up a rainout. Jack Chesbro suffered from bad timing: he jumped from the Pittsburgh Pirates to the New York Highlanders (later the Yankees) before the 1903 season, the year that the Pirates won the pennant and played in the first World Series. Then in 1904, Chesbro made the infamous wild pitch that cost the Highlanders a chance at the pennant on the last day of the season. His teammate that day was Wee Willie Keeler, who spent seven of his eight post-1902 seasons with the Highlanders, which would not appear in a World Series until 1921. Bobby Wallace played 16 years for the St. Louis Browns and Cardinals from 1903 on. The Cards played in their first World Series in 1926, the Browns in 1944, long after Wallace had retired. Perhaps the most agonizing near miss, however, happened to Rube Waddell. He was the ace of the 1905 Philadelphia Athletics staff, going 26-5 to lead them to the American League pennant. Unfortunately, late in the season he got into a scuffle with a teammate and hurt his arm. He did not pitch in the Series as the A's lost to the Giants. The Hall of Fame credentials of Joss, Lajoie, Flick, Chesbro, Waddell, and Wallace were largely compiled after the commencement of the modern World Series, and thus they represent the first wave of players whose careers were not capped by an appearance in the Fall Classic. More were to come. Fourteen Hall of Famers played their entire careers in the modern era without appearing in the Series: Ted Lyons and Luke Appling share with Ernie Banks the distinction of HOFers playing their entire careers with a club that never won the pennant. Lyons and Appling were also longtime teammates on the Chicago White Sox, which went 40 years between World Series appearances. To date, the Chicago Cubs have gone 58 years since their last fall classic appearance in 1945. That lack of fortune affected not only Banks but also Fergie Jenkins and Billy Williams, longtime Cubs and teammates of Banks. Their trades to other clubs never made up for those years of futility with Chicago. Similarly, Harry Heilmann spent 1,5 of his 17 years in the majors with the Detroit Tigers during a period when the club went 25 years between pennants. And Ralph Kiner spent eight seasons of his brief ten-year career with the Pittsburgh Pirates during a period when that franchise went 33 years between pennants. By contrast, from 1929 to 1947 Rick Ferrell played for the Browns, Red Sox, and Senators. Each club won one pennant during this period, but Ferrell was never on the right team when it cashed in. George Ken played for five teams from 1943 to 1957, but the nearest he ever came to a World Series were three second-place finishes with Detroit, finishing no closer than three games out in 1950. George Sisler came closest to the Series in 1922, when the St. Louis Browns finished one game behind the New York Yankees. Jim Banning was a member of the 1964 Philadelphia Phillies, thought to be locks for the pennant until their late-season collapse. With the introduction of division play in 1969, players like Rod Carew, Phil Niekro, Billy Williams, and Gaylord Perry actually made it into the post-season, but Carew was on the losing side in four League Championship Series, Niekro on two, and Williams and Perry on one apiece. Gaylord Perry's nearest miss, however, was not in the LCS. In his rookie season of 1962, the San Francisco Giants won the pennant and met the Yankees in the World Series. Gaylord had spent most of the season in the minors before his call-up in September. He contributed three wins to the San Francisco effort that year and played a part in helping the Giants overtake the Dodgers, with whom the Giants finished in a tie at the end of the regular season before beating them in a three-game playoff. But Perry had been called up too late to make the post-season roster! He pitched batting practice during the Series, but he was not eligible to play. Perhaps even Ernie Banks would have preferred not coming that close. RELATED ARTICLE: A World series without Hall-of-Famers? by Jean-Pierre Caillault The flip-side of Bobby Fong's article is all of the World Series in which no Hall of Famer participated. The first occurrence of this came in the 1890 Series between the NL champion Brooklyn Bridegrooms and the American Association champion Louisville Colonels. The Players' League champion of 1890, the Boston Reds, were not invited to participate in the Series; if they had, then their Hall of Fame triumvirate of Dan Brouthers, Charlie Radbourn, and King Kelly would have prevented 1890 from having this dubious distinction. Other World Series with no Hall of Fame players are recent ones in which most players are not yet eligible for election. The Series with the lowest chance of having a participant end up in the Hall was the 1997 edition between the Marlins and Indians. The best candidates from those teams were Gary Sheffield, Manny Ramirez, Jim Thome, and Kevin Brown, none of whom is a certainty. If we examine World Series Champions only, then the first Championship team not to have anyone in the Hall was the 1981 Dodgers (the 1890 WS ended in a tie, three wins apiece). The 1984 Tigers (Jack Morris?), the 1988 Dodgers (Orel Hershiser?), 1997 Marlins, the 1998 Yankees (Derek Jeter?, Mariano Rivera?), and the 2002 Angels (?) are excellent candidates to join the 1981 Dodgers on this list. Excluding the most recent Series, there have been 11 Champions with only one player enshrined in Cooperstown--the winners of the very first World Series in 1884, the Providence Grays, with Radbourn as their sole representative; the 1886 St. Louis Browns (Charley Comiskey); the 1919 Reds (Edd Roush); the 1940 Reds (Ernie Lombardi); the 1943 Yankees (Bill Dickey); the 1944 Cardinals (Start Musial); the 1979 Pirates (Willie Stargell); the 1980 Cardinals (Ozzie Smith); the 1985 Royais (George Brett); the 1986 Mets (Gary Carter); and the 1987 Twins (Kirby Puckett). The Championship team with the most Hall of Famers was the 1932 Yankees with nine (Earl Combs, Dickey, Lou Gehrig, Lefty Gomez, Tony Lazzeri, Herb Pennock, Red Ruffing, Babe Ruth, and Joe Sewell). There have been seven Champions with six Hall of Famers who participated in the World Series: the 1888 and 1889 New York Giants (Roger Connor, Buck Ewing, Tim Keefe, Jim O'Rourke, John Ward, and Mickey Welch); the 1927 Yankees (Combs, Gehrig, Waite Hoyt, Lazzeri, Pennock, and Ruth), the 1928 Yankees (Combs, Leo Durocher, Gehrig, Hoyt, Lazzeri, and Ruth); the 1934 Cardinals (Dizzy Dean, Durocher, Frankie Frisch, Jesse Haines, Joe Medwick, and Dazzy Vance); and the 1936 and 1937 Yankees (Dickey, Joe DiMaggio, Gehrig, Gomez, Lazzeri, and Ruffing). The most Hall of Fame players on a World Series losing team was seven, infamously achieved by the 1924 Giants (Frisch, Travis Jackson, George Kelly, Fred Lindstrom, Bill Terry, Hack Wilson, and Ross Youngs). And the most Cooperstown inductees from both teams in one World Series occurred in 1932 when the Chicago Cubs added four (Kiki Cuyler, Burleigh Grimes, Gabby Hartnett, and Billy Herman) to the Yankees' nine to make a likely never-to-be-broken record of 13. Table 1. Years played, from 1903 on P Jack Chesbro 7 * Addie Joss 8 * Kid Nichols 3 Rube Waddell 8 * 1B Jake Beckley 5 Dan Brouthers 1 ([dagger]) 2B Nap Lajoie 14 * SS Hughie Jennings 5 ([dagger]) Bobby Wallace 16 * 0F Jesse Burkett 3 Ed Delahanty 1 Hugh Duffy 3 ([dagger]) Elmer Flick 8 * Willie Keeler 8 Joe Kelley 5 Jim O'Rourke 1 ([dagger]) Sam Thompson 1 ([dagger]) Played at least half of major league career from 1903 on Willie Keeler 8 Joe Kelley 5 Jim O'Rourke 1 ([dagger]) Sam Thompson 1 ([dagger]) * Played at least half of major league career from 1903 on ([dagger]) Made only occasional appearances from 1903 on Table 2. Years played P Jim Bunning 17 Ferguson Jenkins 19 Ted Lyons 21 Phil Niekro 24 Gaylord Perry 22 C Rick Ferrell 18 1B George Sisler 15 2B Rod Carew 19 3B George Kell 15 SS Luke Appling 20 Ernie Banks 19 0F Harry Heilmann 17 Ralph Kiner 10 Billy Williams 18 A member of SABR since 1984, BOBBY FONG is president of Butler University, Indianapolis, Indiana.

The Chicago Cubs' latest pennant near-miss continues to deny Sammy Sosa, a certain Hall of Famer, an appearance in the World Series. Sammy may yet share the dubious distinction of fellow Cub Ernie Banks, the best-known example of a Hall of Fame player who never played in the World Series. Actually, there have been 31 Cooperstown honorees with playing time since 1903, when the modern World Series was inaugurated, who never participated in the fall classic. Seventeen of these players had major league experience prior to 1903. The following chart lists them and the number of years they played from 1903 on: Five players were 19th-century stars whose appearances from 1903 on were cursory. Jim O'Rourke and Dan Brouthers played for the 1904 New York Giants with the encouragement of John McGraw, O'Rourke suiting up for one game, Brouthers for two. Similarly, Sam Thompson appeared in eight games for the 1906 Detroit Tigers. Hugh Duffy and Hughie Jennings played occasionally after each had become a coach or manager, Duffy in 34 games over three seasons, and Jennings in 11 games between 1903 and 1918. Jennings did manage the 1907 to 1909 Tigers, who played in and lost three consecutive World Series. Ed Delahanty was a regular with the 1903 Washington club, but his career was cut short by his mysterious death at Niagara Falls in the midst of the season. Kid Nichols, Jake Beckley, Jesse Burkett, and Joe Kelley played three to five seasons from 1903 on, but they were on the downside of their careers and on teams that did not win pennants. By contrast, six players played at least half of their careers after 1903. Three, Addie Joss, Nap Lajoie, and Elmer Flick, were Cleveland teammates from 1902 to 1910. Despite their presence, the closest the club came to winning a pennant was 1908, when it finished a half-game behind the Tigers because Detroit was not required to make up a rainout. Jack Chesbro suffered from bad timing: he jumped from the Pittsburgh Pirates to the New York Highlanders (later the Yankees) before the 1903 season, the year that the Pirates won the pennant and played in the first World Series. Then in 1904, Chesbro made the infamous wild pitch that cost the Highlanders a chance at the pennant on the last day of the season. His teammate that day was Wee Willie Keeler, who spent seven of his eight post-1902 seasons with the Highlanders, which would not appear in a World Series until 1921. Bobby Wallace played 16 years for the St. Louis Browns and Cardinals from 1903 on. The Cards played in their first World Series in 1926, the Browns in 1944, long after Wallace had retired. Perhaps the most agonizing near miss, however, happened to Rube Waddell. He was the ace of the 1905 Philadelphia Athletics staff, going 26-5 to lead them to the American League pennant. Unfortunately, late in the season he got into a scuffle with a teammate and hurt his arm. He did not pitch in the Series as the A's lost to the Giants. The Hall of Fame credentials of Joss, Lajoie, Flick, Chesbro, Waddell, and Wallace were largely compiled after the commencement of the modern World Series, and thus they represent the first wave of players whose careers were not capped by an appearance in the Fall Classic. More were to come. Fourteen Hall of Famers played their entire careers in the modern era without appearing in the Series: Ted Lyons and Luke Appling share with Ernie Banks the distinction of HOFers playing their entire careers with a club that never won the pennant. Lyons and Appling were also longtime teammates on the Chicago White Sox, which went 40 years between World Series appearances. To date, the Chicago Cubs have gone 58 years since their last fall classic appearance in 1945. That lack of fortune affected not only Banks but also Fergie Jenkins and Billy Williams, longtime Cubs and teammates of Banks. Their trades to other clubs never made up for those years of futility with Chicago. Similarly, Harry Heilmann spent 1,5 of his 17 years in the majors with the Detroit Tigers during a period when the club went 25 years between pennants. And Ralph Kiner spent eight seasons of his brief ten-year career with the Pittsburgh Pirates during a period when that franchise went 33 years between pennants. By contrast, from 1929 to 1947 Rick Ferrell played for the Browns, Red Sox, and Senators. Each club won one pennant during this period, but Ferrell was never on the right team when it cashed in. George Ken played for five teams from 1943 to 1957, but the nearest he ever came to a World Series were three second-place finishes with Detroit, finishing no closer than three games out in 1950. George Sisler came closest to the Series in 1922, when the St. Louis Browns finished one game behind the New York Yankees. Jim Banning was a member of the 1964 Philadelphia Phillies, thought to be locks for the pennant until their late-season collapse. With the introduction of division play in 1969, players like Rod Carew, Phil Niekro, Billy Williams, and Gaylord Perry actually made it into the post-season, but Carew was on the losing side in four League Championship Series, Niekro on two, and Williams and Perry on one apiece. Gaylord Perry's nearest miss, however, was not in the LCS. In his rookie season of 1962, the San Francisco Giants won the pennant and met the Yankees in the World Series. Gaylord had spent most of the season in the minors before his call-up in September. He contributed three wins to the San Francisco effort that year and played a part in helping the Giants overtake the Dodgers, with whom the Giants finished in a tie at the end of the regular season before beating them in a three-game playoff. But Perry had been called up too late to make the post-season roster! He pitched batting practice during the Series, but he was not eligible to play. Perhaps even Ernie Banks would have preferred not coming that close. RELATED ARTICLE: A World series without Hall-of-Famers? by Jean-Pierre Caillault The flip-side of Bobby Fong's article is all of the World Series in which no Hall of Famer participated. The first occurrence of this came in the 1890 Series between the NL champion Brooklyn Bridegrooms and the American Association champion Louisville Colonels. The Players' League champion of 1890, the Boston Reds, were not invited to participate in the Series; if they had, then their Hall of Fame triumvirate of Dan Brouthers, Charlie Radbourn, and King Kelly would have prevented 1890 from having this dubious distinction. Other World Series with no Hall of Fame players are recent ones in which most players are not yet eligible for election. The Series with the lowest chance of having a participant end up in the Hall was the 1997 edition between the Marlins and Indians. The best candidates from those teams were Gary Sheffield, Manny Ramirez, Jim Thome, and Kevin Brown, none of whom is a certainty. If we examine World Series Champions only, then the first Championship team not to have anyone in the Hall was the 1981 Dodgers (the 1890 WS ended in a tie, three wins apiece). The 1984 Tigers (Jack Morris?), the 1988 Dodgers (Orel Hershiser?), 1997 Marlins, the 1998 Yankees (Derek Jeter?, Mariano Rivera?), and the 2002 Angels (?) are excellent candidates to join the 1981 Dodgers on this list. Excluding the most recent Series, there have been 11 Champions with only one player enshrined in Cooperstown--the winners of the very first World Series in 1884, the Providence Grays, with Radbourn as their sole representative; the 1886 St. Louis Browns (Charley Comiskey); the 1919 Reds (Edd Roush); the 1940 Reds (Ernie Lombardi); the 1943 Yankees (Bill Dickey); the 1944 Cardinals (Start Musial); the 1979 Pirates (Willie Stargell); the 1980 Cardinals (Ozzie Smith); the 1985 Royais (George Brett); the 1986 Mets (Gary Carter); and the 1987 Twins (Kirby Puckett). The Championship team with the most Hall of Famers was the 1932 Yankees with nine (Earl Combs, Dickey, Lou Gehrig, Lefty Gomez, Tony Lazzeri, Herb Pennock, Red Ruffing, Babe Ruth, and Joe Sewell). There have been seven Champions with six Hall of Famers who participated in the World Series: the 1888 and 1889 New York Giants (Roger Connor, Buck Ewing, Tim Keefe, Jim O'Rourke, John Ward, and Mickey Welch); the 1927 Yankees (Combs, Gehrig, Waite Hoyt, Lazzeri, Pennock, and Ruth), the 1928 Yankees (Combs, Leo Durocher, Gehrig, Hoyt, Lazzeri, and Ruth); the 1934 Cardinals (Dizzy Dean, Durocher, Frankie Frisch, Jesse Haines, Joe Medwick, and Dazzy Vance); and the 1936 and 1937 Yankees (Dickey, Joe DiMaggio, Gehrig, Gomez, Lazzeri, and Ruffing). The most Hall of Fame players on a World Series losing team was seven, infamously achieved by the 1924 Giants (Frisch, Travis Jackson, George Kelly, Fred Lindstrom, Bill Terry, Hack Wilson, and Ross Youngs). And the most Cooperstown inductees from both teams in one World Series occurred in 1932 when the Chicago Cubs added four (Kiki Cuyler, Burleigh Grimes, Gabby Hartnett, and Billy Herman) to the Yankees' nine to make a likely never-to-be-broken record of 13. Table 1. Years played, from 1903 on P Jack Chesbro 7 * Addie Joss 8 * Kid Nichols 3 Rube Waddell 8 * 1B Jake Beckley 5 Dan Brouthers 1 ([dagger]) 2B Nap Lajoie 14 * SS Hughie Jennings 5 ([dagger]) Bobby Wallace 16 * 0F Jesse Burkett 3 Ed Delahanty 1 Hugh Duffy 3 ([dagger]) Elmer Flick 8 * Willie Keeler 8 Joe Kelley 5 Jim O'Rourke 1 ([dagger]) Sam Thompson 1 ([dagger]) Played at least half of major league career from 1903 on Willie Keeler 8 Joe Kelley 5 Jim O'Rourke 1 ([dagger]) Sam Thompson 1 ([dagger]) * Played at least half of major league career from 1903 on ([dagger]) Made only occasional appearances from 1903 on Table 2. Years played P Jim Bunning 17 Ferguson Jenkins 19 Ted Lyons 21 Phil Niekro 24 Gaylord Perry 22 C Rick Ferrell 18 1B George Sisler 15 2B Rod Carew 19 3B George Kell 15 SS Luke Appling 20 Ernie Banks 19 0F Harry Heilmann 17 Ralph Kiner 10 Billy Williams 18 A member of SABR since 1984, BOBBY FONG is president of Butler University, Indianapolis, Indiana.

The Mets lost the world series because the royals out hit them. The Royals had a lot of good pitchers line up V.S the Mets in the 5 games they played. This lead to a happy Royals team and fan club but not so happy for the Mets.

One. The 2004 Boston Red Sox beat the New York Yankees after trailing 3 nil in the American League Championship series. As of the beginning of the 2005 season they are the only MLB team to do so, and the first team of all major sports to do so outside of hockey.

The Boston Red Sox are the only team to accomplish this -- coming back form down 3-0 against the New York Yankees in the American League Championship Series