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| 20th October, 2008 - 2:51 pm | Christopher Reina/RealGM - Six different teams have won the seven World Series since the Yankees won it three years in a row. The 2008 World Series will now make seven.
Now that the Phillies and Rays are the 2008 World Series contestants, 17 different teams have reached the World Series since 1997. That's 56.7% of the league and two of those teams (including the Rays) didn't even exist in 1997.
The maximum number of teams that could have reached a World Series is 24, so the five Yankee appearances, two from Boston, two from St. Louis, and two from Florida takeaway those other seven.
The NFL has had 16 different teams have reached the Super Bowl since 1997 and nine separate winning teams.
The NBA has had 13 different teams have reached the Finals since 1997 and six separate winning teams.
Before free agency became a common reality between 1971 and 1979, only five teams won a World Series (two from Pittsburgh, three from Oakland, two from Cincinnati and two from the Yankees).
The NBA had eight separate winners during the 70s, six for the NFL.
With free agency beginning to become commonplace in the 80's, nine different teams won a World Series with the 1981 and 1988 Dodgers being the only team to win two. Fifteen different teams reached the World Series (there were only 26 teams back then).
The NBA had four separate winners during the 80s, seven for the NFL.
Seven different teams won a World Series in the 90s, with the Yankees and Jays both winning multiple times and the Reds, Twins, Braves, and Marlins interspersed. There were only 11 different teams that even appeared in the World Series during that time frame, with the Braves acting the role of the Buffalo Bills four different times and the Indians coming up on the wrong end twice.
Even though the Wildcard didn't have a huge impact in the 90s, it has unquestionably altered the playoff landscape during this decade. Eight different Wildcard teams have appeared in the World Series since 2000 (three have won,) and the 2008 Fall Classic marks the first time since 2001 in which a Wildcard team hasn't made it.
The inclusion of the Wildcard means the first round of the playoffs is a best of five, which truly is a crap-shoot and lends itself to upsets.
But the competitive balance measures that the MLB created early in this decade have clearly materialized and are genuine in intent.
Unlike the NBA, the MLB league office behaves in a way to suggest that they are unconcerned with ensuring dream match-ups becoming a reality. A World Series in which Manny Ramirez would have returned to Boston as a member of the Los Angeles Dodgers would have trumped the NBA's rivalry reunion of the Lakers and Celtics in which they fell over themselves.
The Manny Returns storyline should have made the MLB the main topic of the country for a few days this week despite the closing days of an election, an ongoing financial crisis, and the weekly machine that is the NFL.
But there feels to be a quiet satisfaction from the MLB that the Rays are in the World Series. This proves that competitive balance is truly working, and since the sport has become increasingly localized in its popularity, they need fans in cities like Pittsburgh, Kansas City, and Cincinnati to believe that anything is possible over the course of those 162 regular season games.
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