Steve Webb
LOS ANGELES, CA — 100 wins is the mystical dividing line be a good team and a great one, but 110 wins? That’s insane. Well, with their win on October 1, 2022, your Los Angeles Dodgers have joined some very heady company indeed. In all of the years and all of the seasons, only six teams have managed to reach that unfathomable plateau.
Now, baseball purists would say that the first 80 years or so of the sport, it was harder to win 110 because most teams just played the 154-game schedule giving modern, post-1961 teams a full eight more games to reach that milestone. I get it. And yes, there are teams of those early days whose winning percentage would translate into a 110-win season out of 162. I get it. But this is my article, so I can write about what I want. So, with apologies to the dozen or so teams that would have qualified under those criteria, let’s look at the teams that actually did make it over that threshold of 110, no asterisks needed.
1909 Pittsburgh Pirates (110-42-2 / .724)
Things might be rough in Pittsburgh these days, but boy howdy in 1909, the Yinzers had themselves a team! Led by player/manager Fred Clarke, this team featured one of the all-time greats: shortstop Honus Wagner. His OPS+ of 177 in that year was far and away the best on the ballclub, but the manager Clarke (who doubled as an outfielder) made big contributions as well. Starter Howie Camnitz and reliever Babe Adams both had sub-2.00 ERA’s, and the Pirates easily raced to the National League pennant.
Then, in this new fangled thing called the “World Series,” which had just begun five years earlier, the Pirated bested the Detroit Tigers 4 games to 2 to win the Pirates’ first of five World Series crowns. Their 110 wins was good for second all-time in the National League until the 2022 Dodgers knocked them down a peg.
1927 New York Yankees (110-44-1 / .714)
Whenever somebody wants to disparage a lineup these days, he might say, “C’mon, they’re not exactly the ’27 Yankees, are they?” Indeed, for decades, this Yankee team was considered the gold standard for “best team of all time.” It’s not hard to see why. Led by Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig at the top of the lineup, this was the batting order that was lovingly called “Murderer’s Row.”
Indeed, the 1927 Yankees were in the business of crushing their opponents (sound like anybody you know?). Their run differential of 371 runs is only surpassed by the 1939 version of the Yankees, winners of 106 games themselves. After winning the American League by a massive 18.5 games the steamrolled the Pirates in four games in the World Series to cement their place in baseball lore forever.
1954 Cleveland Indians (111-43-2 / .721)
When I was a kid, maybe because I instinctively hated the Yankees, I considered this Cleveland team the best regular season team in baseball history by virtue of their better winning percentage than the 1927 Yanks. They didn’t have many big names on the roster, but they put together an amazing season. Led by infielders Al Rosen and Bobby Avila and centerfielder Larry Doby, as well as Hall of Famers Early Wynn, Bob Lemon, and Bob Feller on the mound, the Indians ran away with the American League. At one point, the team was an incredible 69 games over .500.
However, their luck ran out in the 1954 World Series, when they found themselves swept by the New York Giants. The series still lives on in the memories of baseball fans because of “The Catch” by Willie May over his shoulder on a ball scalded by Vic Wertz. Sadly, the Indians/Guardians’ futility continues to this day, as Cleveland fans are still looking for their first ring since 1948, the longest current World Series drought.
1998 New York Yankees (114-48 / .704)
The dreaded Yankees second appearance on this list is the high-water mark of the Derek Jeter era. Bernie Williams, Paul O’Neill and a rejuvenated Darryl Strawberry led the way at the plate, and David Wells, David Cone, and Orlando Hernandez were the top starters for the team. And of course, when you talk about the Yanks in this period, you have to mention the otherworldly cutter of Mariano Rivera. Rivera had 36 saves and a 1.91 ERA that year, and was essentially automatic in the 9th inning. And what about the Captain? Jeter was still one of the younger Yanks at this point, but he was still a valuable contributor. At the age of 24, he made his first All-Star team and finished 3rd in MVP voting, behind the Rangers’ Juan Gonzalez and our buddy Nomar. In fact, A-Rod (then with Seattle) had a better WAR than all of them that year, but whatever.
But it wasn’t the 114 wins that makes this team an all-time great. It was the way they blew the competition out of the water in the playoffs. They swept the Rangers in the Division series, got a bit of a fight from the Indians in the NLCS before winning 4-2, and then swept Tony Gwynn and the Padres in the World Series. That’s an 11-2 record in the post season. Just wow.
2001 Seattle Mariners (116-46 / .716)
The 2001 Mariners have been talked about quite a bit this year, because this team was, until September 30 of this year, the last Mariner ballclub to make the postseason. This was the year of Ichiro-mania. The 27-year-old Japanese import Ichiro Suzuki hit an incredible .350 that year, and he didn’t even lead this amazing team in OPS. No, that honor went to Hall of Famer Edgar Martinez. But this lineup was stacked with Bret Boone, John Olerud, and Mike Cameron all making big contributions. Freddie Garcia and ageless wonder Jamie Moyer led the pitching staff, with great bullpen contributions from Arthur Rhodes.
However, the Mariners’ accomplishments were overshadowed by a couple of events that led this team to be undervalued. First, they put up these great numbers in the shadow of 9/11. It’s hard to get to enthusiastic about a baseball team clinching the pennant when Ground Zero is still smoldering. Plus, in spite of their great regular-season, the Mariners couldn’t seal the deal. After sweeping their way to the ALCS, they fell flat to the Yankees, losing 4-1. Maybe the baseball gods wanted to give New York the World Series that year to balm its broken heart, but whatever the reason, the Mariners fell short, and their season will always been a great “might-have-been.”
1906 Chicago Cubs (116-36 / .763)
And finally, the team with the most wins and the best regular season winning percentage of all time, the 1906 Chicago Cubs. It is somewhat ironic that this title is held by a franchise that became known as a symbol of hapless futility for nearly 100 years. Led by pitcher Mordecai “Three Fingers” Brown and his 26 wins and 1.04, ERA the Cubbies were a machine. They tore through the competition that year, winning the National League by 20 games.
This was the team of the famous “Tinker-to-Evers-to-Chance” double play combination, and they wowed Windy City fans with their great defense on the regular. Believe it or not the Cubbies were something of a dynasty in those days. 1906 marked the first of three straight World Series appearances for the Cubs. The team lost in ’06 to the White Sox, but went back-to-back the next two seasons. Then, some dude tried to bring his billy goat to a World Series game, and that was the end of that.
2022 Los Angeles Dodgers (111-51)
There is only one thing that separates some of these great teams from the Los Angeles Dodgers: October. One can point to the Yankees of the 20s-30s or the 90s-00s and rightly call them a dynasty. Why? Rings. It all comes down to rings. And while the the Dodgers have gone to three World Series in this run, they’ve only got one title to show for it: the championship in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season. Putting aside for a moment 2017 and all the “what-ifs” that come with it, the Dodgers need another title or two (or three) before we can start talking about them in the same breath as those powerhouse Yankee teams.
So Dodgers, enjoy the success, revel in all the historical comparisons. But you know as well as your fan base that it’s not going to mean a thing if you don’t win the last game of the year, the one that comes with a ring and a champagne bath.
