And now to baseball...
If you read the sports pages today you're going to see many articles with this bit of information:
New York's victory also eliminated the Braves from the NL East race, ending their record run of 14 straight division titles.
14 straight division titles is the most by any franchise, anywhere, in any sport. But I come to piss on this grave, not cheer the Braves accomplishments.
In this particular streak the Braves first won the NL East in 1991 and last in 2005. Math scholars in the audience will quickly point that is 15 seasons. What happened?!
The reason you see "14 straight division titles" instead of "14 years" or "15 seasons" is because there was no division title awarded in 1994. That year the players went on strike. On August 11, 1994, the last day of the season, the Braves were six games behind the Montréal Expos. You can watch the 1994 season speed by at BaseballRace.com.
The Expos would have won that season, and probably beat the Chicago White Sox in the 1994 World Series. But we'll never know for sure. I do know for a fact that the Braves can claim winning the NL East a mere 11 years in a row. Skipping strike-shortened seasons must have been an idea generated by the Braves' PR people.
Yeah, I'm still bitter about MLB lying to, cheating, and screwing the Expos' fans.
