SWC75
Bored Historian
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(Another blast from the past from my reviewed of the WORD documents I've kept over the years.)
Greatest Rivalries
I happened to be thinking about baseball rivalries. Pro sports don’t emphasize rivalries as much as college sports does, (I guess they are satisfied with TV contracts). Bud Selig brought in inter-league play, which gives us a view of what rivalries there could be if the sport wanted to realign to promote them. It doesn’t. But we are left with three genuine rivalries that have been with us for virtually the entire the history of the game.
The greatest rivalry baseball has ever had was the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants. They were in the same league and played each other 22 times a year. They were also in the same city for if you were a Giant fan, the guy at the next desk might be a Dodger fan and it’s all you’d talk about. I’ve heard that since they moved to the coast much of the intensity was lost: they were now in different cities that barely acknowledged each other’s existence.
Nowadays, the biggest rivalry is the Yankees vs. the Red Sox. Two large market teams with apparently bottomless checkbooks that make sure each of them have line-ups festooned with all-stars. An entire section of the country is fascinated by the rivalry and, since the national press is primarily located there, it gets the most attention.
The third great rivalry is the Cubs and the Cardinals. That gives us one in the middle of the country to go with one on each coast. It doesn’t get the attention that the coastal rivalries get in the national press but I suspect that if you grow up in the Midwest, you don’t much care. The Cubs and the Cardinals want to beat each other as much as the Yankees and Red Sox or the Dodgers and the Giants and their fans want the same thing.
The six teams involved own a large chunk of baseball history. I decided to see how many pennants and championships each team had won and thus how much of baseball history each rivalry represented. I knew which one would come out on top but it was fun to do anyway.
Baseball history at the big-league level begins with the National Association of Professional Baseball Players in 1871. In 1876 the top teams broke off to form the National League. A rival league, the American Association, was formed in 1882 and lasted until 1891. There were even “World Series” between the two leagues from 1884-1890. The AA went out of business, (and later came back as a minor league), before the 1892 season. A new rival league, the American league, began in 1901. The first of the “modern” World Series was played in 1903, when the Boston Pilgrims, (later the Red Sox), beat the Pittsburgh Pirates for the championship. John McGraw, who Giants won the NL in 1904, declined to play the Pilgrims, who repeated in the AL. The next year McGraw bowed to pressure and deigned to play, (and beat), the AL champion Philadelphia Athletics. There was a World Series every year from 1905-1993. The strike prevented it in 1994 but we’ve had one every year since. There were some other attempts at rival leagues that never really got off the ground: the Union Association in 1884, the Player’s league in 1890 and the Federal league in 1914-15. That’s a total of 258 pennants and 111 World Series titles to be won and the Yankees, Red Sox, Cubs, Cardinals, Giants and Dodgers, have won 130 of the pennants and 59 of the World Series plus five other championships when the National league was the only major league and thus their pennants represented the world championship.
Here is a breakdown:
- The Yankees and Red Sox both date from the foundation of the American league in 1901. The Yankees actually started out as the Baltimore Orioles for two years, (the second of four incarnations of that name), but moved to New York to become the “Highlanders” in 1903 and then the Yankees in 1913. But they could win nothing until they obtained Babe Ruth in 1920 and even then they could only finish third. But then they won three pennants in a row, facing John McGraw’s Giants each time. They lost the first two but finally broke through with their first title in 1923, also the first year of Yankee stadium. Then Ruth had some problems with his health and with the commissioner and they didn’t win another pennant until winning three in a row again from 1926-28. They lost the 1926 series to the Cardinals and to that point, the seven seasons Ruth had been in New York had produced only one championship. But then came the 1927-28 Yankees, the best team ever, according to some. They swept the Pirates and then Cardinals in the World Series. They were then eclipsed by Connie Mack’s Athletics, who matched the Yankee’s 1926-28 record in 1929-31 with three pennants and two series titles. Mack had to sell off his stars and the Yankees re-emerged with another series sweep in 1932 over the Cubs. They then had to rebuild and re-emerged with four straight series titles from 1936-39, over the Giants, (twice) and then the Cubs and Reds, (two more sweeps: Their record in the World Series from 1927 to 1941 was 32 wins and 4 losses). After and off year, they won three more straight pennants in 1941-43, beating the Dodgers and then splitting with the Cardinals. They were back after the war with a 1947 win over the Dodgers. Then they had their record five year run in 1949-53, beating the Dodgers three times as well as the Phillies and Giants. They actually won 103 games in 1954, (the most they won in any year from 1943-1960) but got beat out by the Indians, who won 111 games. They won four more pennants from 1955-58 but split World Series with both the Dodgers and the Braves. After a down year in 1959, they won another five pennants in a row from 1960-64, winning the series over the Reds and Giants in 1961-62 but losing to the Pirates, Dodgers and Cardinals in the other years. They then had an 11 year fallow period ended by George Steinbrenner, Billy Martin, Reggie Jackson and a refurbished stadium that produced three straight pennants from 1976-78. They lost to the Reds but then beat the Dodgers twice. They got back to the series in 1981 but lost to the Dodgers. Then came another fallow period from 1982-1995. The Joe Torre era produced six more pennants: 1996, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001 and 2003. They beat the Braves in 1996 and 1999, the Padres in 1998 and the Mets in 2000 but got beat by the Diamondbacks in 2001 and the Marlins in 2003. Total: 39 pennants, 26 championships. (Since I first wrote this they’ve won another pennant and World Series in 2009 to go to 40 and 27.)
- The Red Sox won the first World Series in 1903 and also won the pennant the next year but there was no World Series. They were back in the series as the Red Sox in 1912 and beat the Giants. They also beat the Phillies in 1915, the Dodgers in 1916 and the Cubs in 1918. They thus won 5 of the first 15 World Series. At that point, they were ahead of the A’s, who had won three, the White Sox and Cubs who had two each and the Giants, Pirates and Braves with one each. (The Braves, as the “Beaneaters”, had won five NL pennants from 1891-1898 so the “Royal Rooters”, who started as Beaneater fans and later switched to the Pilgrims- who played across the street at the time- won 11 championships in a 28 year period.) Harry Frazee then sold off the top players on the team and the Sox didn’t recover until the Ted Williams era. Even then they could win only one pennant- in 1946- and lost to the Cardinals in the World Series. Then came the Yaz era with pennants in 1967 and 1975 but losses to the Cardinals again and the Reds. They were back in 1986 against the Mets and lost again. But then came the 2004 win over the Cardinals and the 2007 victory over the Rockies. Total: 12 pennants, 7 championships. (Since then they’ve won two more championships in 2013 and 2018 and are now 14/9)
- The Cubs began as the Chicago White Stockings in 1871. They became the “Colts” in 1890 and the “Orphans” in 1898 before becoming the Cubs in 1903. They won the first national league pennant in 1876 and became the dominant team of the 1880’s with pennants in 1880-82, and 1885-86. They tied the St. Louis Browns of the American Association, 3-3-1 in a World Series that was never finished due to a dispute. The next year they lost to the Browns, who would later join the National League and change their uniform color from brown to cardinal, 2-4. In effect, it was a ‘World Series’ between the Cubs and the Caredinals! They didn’t win another pennant until a generation later, when they set a record by winning 116 games in 1906, only to lose to the cross-town White Sox in the World Series. They came back to beat Ty Cobb’s Tigers the next two years. They had the best record ever for a non-pennant winner in 1909, 104-49, (the Pirates went 110-42), and came back to win the pennant in 1910 but lost to the A’s in the series. Their great period was over but they made it back to the series six more times- losing to the Red Sox in 1918, the A’s in 1929, the Yankees in 1932, the Tigers in 1935, the Yankees again in 1938 and the Tigers again in 1945. That was the year when, (according to a legend made up by Mike Royko), a bar owner and his pet goat were refused entrance to Wrigley Field. He’s supposed to have put a curse on the Cubbies and they’ve never been back to a World Series since. (There’s been 63 of them.) And they haven’t won it in a century. Total: 16 pennants, 5 world championships, (counting 1876 and 1880-81 but not 1882 because the AA was in business but they didn’t play their champion). (The streak finally ended in 2016 so the Cubbies are now 17/6)
- The Cardinals began life as the St. Louis Browns of the American Association in 1882. They won four straight pennants from 1885-88 and that one World Series over the White Stockings. They also lost series to the Detroit Wolverines of the NL in 1887 and to the New York Giants in 1888. When the AA folded in 1891, they joined the NL and changed their name to the “Perfectos” in 1898, (they were decidedly imperfect, going 39-111), and then to the Cardinals in 1899. They were also-rans until Branch Rickey took over the team in the 1920’s and built baseball’s first farm system, which lead to the “Gashouse Gang” era, which produced pennants in 1926, 1928, 1930, 1931, and 1934. They split with the Yankees, then the Athletics and then beat the Tigers. It also produced the Stan Musial era, which got off to a rousing start with pennants in 1942-44 and 46, (Stan was in the service in ’45). They split with the Yankees, beat the cross-town Browns and then Williams’ Red Sox. Stan played until 1963 and then retired without winning another pennant. The Cardinals promptly won another World Series, over the Yankees in 1964 and then two more pennants in 1967-68, beating the Red Sox and losing to the Tigers. They then had a fallow period until the Whitey Herzog era, which produced pennants in 1982, 85 and 87. The beat the Brewers but lost to the Royals and Twins in the last two years. They came back to face the Red Sox in 2004 and beat the Tigers in 2006. Total: 21 pennants, 11 world championships. (They’ve since beaten the Rangers in 2011 but lost to the Red Sox in 2013 to move to 23/12)
- The Giants started out as the New York Gothams in 1883. Their owner, Chris Von Der Ahe saluted the team as “My Giants” two years later and they have been known by that name ever since. They won National League pennants and World Series over the AA champs in 1888-89, beating the Browns, (Cardinals) and the Brooklyn Bridegrooms, (the Dodgers- imagine a Giants-Dodgers World Series- they had one in 1889). The Giants then shrunk until John McGraw took over the team in 1903. In his 30 year tenure, McGraw won ten pennants. He refused to play the Pilgrims, (Red Sox) in 1904, but beat the Athletics in 1905, lost to them in 1911, the Red Sox in 1912, the A’s again in 1913 and the White Sox in 1917. He beat the Yankees in 1921-22 but lost to them in 1923 and to the Senators in 1924. He turned the team over to Bill Terry as player-manager in 1933 and they promptly beat the Senators in the World Series. Terry won two more pennants in 1936-37 but lost to the Yankees. The Giants then shrunk again until Leo Durocher and Willie Mays led them to pennants in 1951 and 1954. They lost to the Yankees but swept the Indians. The Giants then moved to San Francisco where they contended basically every year as long as Mays was there but were only able to win one pennant, (in 1962, after winning a playoff with the Dodgers), and lost to the Yankees again. After many trials, including almost moving a couple more times, they got back to the World Series in 1989 but fell victim to the A’s, (and the earthquake). They returned again in 2002 only to lose to the Angels. Total: 20 pennants and 7 world championships. (They came back to win the World Series in 2010, 2012 and 2014 to move to 24/11)
- The Dodgers were born as the Brooklyn Atlantics of the American Association in 1884. They became the Grays for three years, then the Bridgegrooms from 1888-1898, the, (not always superb) Superbas from 1899-1910, the (Trolley) Dodgers for a couple of years, then the Superbas again for a year. From 1914-1931, they were called the “Robins” after their popular manager, Wilbert Robinson. After his death, they reverted to the Dodgers and have been thus known ever since. The Bridegrooms won the AA title in 1889, (but lost the series to the Giants), then jumped to the NL and won the title there, tying the Louisville Colonels 3-3-1 in another abandoned series with the AA champs, which brought that event to an end. The Superbas were superb in 1899-1900. They were owned by the same people who owned the Baltimore Orioles, who had won NL pennants in 1894-96. The owners simply switched the best Oriole players to Brooklyn because they had a bigger ballpark and they won two more pennants there. But there was nothing more until Robbie’s Robins won pennants in 1916 and 1920, but lost the series to the Red Sox and Indians. But that was it until Durocher took over the team and won the 1941 pennant. Leo got suspended for the 1947 season and Burt Shotton led the team to another pennant and another in 1949. Chuck Dressen took over and won pennants in 1952 and 1953. Those teams all had something in common: the Yankees beat them every year. Walter Alston finally broke through, splitting with the Yankees in 1955-56. The team moved to Los Angeles in 1958 and somehow lost their “perpetual underdog” karma immediately, winning pennants in 1959, 1963, 1965 and 1966. They beat the White Sox, Yankees, and Twins before getting swept by the Orioles. Their farm system, (also a legacy of Branch Rickey), produced pennant winners in 1974, 1977, 1978, 1981 and 1988. They got beat by the A’s and twice by the Yankees but came back to beat those teams the last two years. The ballclub changed hands a couple of times since and the magnificent organization has sputtered a bit since but they are looking awfully good so far this year. Total: 22 pennants, 8 world championships, (including 1899-1900). (The Dodgers lost the 2017 and 2018 World Series to go to 24/8.)
The Yankees and the Red Sox thus total 51 pennants and 33 world championships. (Now 54/36.) The Cubs and Cardinals total 37 pennants and 16 world championships. (Now 40/18.) The Giants and Dodgers total 42 pennants and 15 world championships. (Now 46/19) When their players step into the batter’s box, they step into history.
(Sources: many, but primarily Baseball-Reference.com)
Greatest Rivalries
I happened to be thinking about baseball rivalries. Pro sports don’t emphasize rivalries as much as college sports does, (I guess they are satisfied with TV contracts). Bud Selig brought in inter-league play, which gives us a view of what rivalries there could be if the sport wanted to realign to promote them. It doesn’t. But we are left with three genuine rivalries that have been with us for virtually the entire the history of the game.
The greatest rivalry baseball has ever had was the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants. They were in the same league and played each other 22 times a year. They were also in the same city for if you were a Giant fan, the guy at the next desk might be a Dodger fan and it’s all you’d talk about. I’ve heard that since they moved to the coast much of the intensity was lost: they were now in different cities that barely acknowledged each other’s existence.
Nowadays, the biggest rivalry is the Yankees vs. the Red Sox. Two large market teams with apparently bottomless checkbooks that make sure each of them have line-ups festooned with all-stars. An entire section of the country is fascinated by the rivalry and, since the national press is primarily located there, it gets the most attention.
The third great rivalry is the Cubs and the Cardinals. That gives us one in the middle of the country to go with one on each coast. It doesn’t get the attention that the coastal rivalries get in the national press but I suspect that if you grow up in the Midwest, you don’t much care. The Cubs and the Cardinals want to beat each other as much as the Yankees and Red Sox or the Dodgers and the Giants and their fans want the same thing.
The six teams involved own a large chunk of baseball history. I decided to see how many pennants and championships each team had won and thus how much of baseball history each rivalry represented. I knew which one would come out on top but it was fun to do anyway.
Baseball history at the big-league level begins with the National Association of Professional Baseball Players in 1871. In 1876 the top teams broke off to form the National League. A rival league, the American Association, was formed in 1882 and lasted until 1891. There were even “World Series” between the two leagues from 1884-1890. The AA went out of business, (and later came back as a minor league), before the 1892 season. A new rival league, the American league, began in 1901. The first of the “modern” World Series was played in 1903, when the Boston Pilgrims, (later the Red Sox), beat the Pittsburgh Pirates for the championship. John McGraw, who Giants won the NL in 1904, declined to play the Pilgrims, who repeated in the AL. The next year McGraw bowed to pressure and deigned to play, (and beat), the AL champion Philadelphia Athletics. There was a World Series every year from 1905-1993. The strike prevented it in 1994 but we’ve had one every year since. There were some other attempts at rival leagues that never really got off the ground: the Union Association in 1884, the Player’s league in 1890 and the Federal league in 1914-15. That’s a total of 258 pennants and 111 World Series titles to be won and the Yankees, Red Sox, Cubs, Cardinals, Giants and Dodgers, have won 130 of the pennants and 59 of the World Series plus five other championships when the National league was the only major league and thus their pennants represented the world championship.
Here is a breakdown:
- The Yankees and Red Sox both date from the foundation of the American league in 1901. The Yankees actually started out as the Baltimore Orioles for two years, (the second of four incarnations of that name), but moved to New York to become the “Highlanders” in 1903 and then the Yankees in 1913. But they could win nothing until they obtained Babe Ruth in 1920 and even then they could only finish third. But then they won three pennants in a row, facing John McGraw’s Giants each time. They lost the first two but finally broke through with their first title in 1923, also the first year of Yankee stadium. Then Ruth had some problems with his health and with the commissioner and they didn’t win another pennant until winning three in a row again from 1926-28. They lost the 1926 series to the Cardinals and to that point, the seven seasons Ruth had been in New York had produced only one championship. But then came the 1927-28 Yankees, the best team ever, according to some. They swept the Pirates and then Cardinals in the World Series. They were then eclipsed by Connie Mack’s Athletics, who matched the Yankee’s 1926-28 record in 1929-31 with three pennants and two series titles. Mack had to sell off his stars and the Yankees re-emerged with another series sweep in 1932 over the Cubs. They then had to rebuild and re-emerged with four straight series titles from 1936-39, over the Giants, (twice) and then the Cubs and Reds, (two more sweeps: Their record in the World Series from 1927 to 1941 was 32 wins and 4 losses). After and off year, they won three more straight pennants in 1941-43, beating the Dodgers and then splitting with the Cardinals. They were back after the war with a 1947 win over the Dodgers. Then they had their record five year run in 1949-53, beating the Dodgers three times as well as the Phillies and Giants. They actually won 103 games in 1954, (the most they won in any year from 1943-1960) but got beat out by the Indians, who won 111 games. They won four more pennants from 1955-58 but split World Series with both the Dodgers and the Braves. After a down year in 1959, they won another five pennants in a row from 1960-64, winning the series over the Reds and Giants in 1961-62 but losing to the Pirates, Dodgers and Cardinals in the other years. They then had an 11 year fallow period ended by George Steinbrenner, Billy Martin, Reggie Jackson and a refurbished stadium that produced three straight pennants from 1976-78. They lost to the Reds but then beat the Dodgers twice. They got back to the series in 1981 but lost to the Dodgers. Then came another fallow period from 1982-1995. The Joe Torre era produced six more pennants: 1996, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001 and 2003. They beat the Braves in 1996 and 1999, the Padres in 1998 and the Mets in 2000 but got beat by the Diamondbacks in 2001 and the Marlins in 2003. Total: 39 pennants, 26 championships. (Since I first wrote this they’ve won another pennant and World Series in 2009 to go to 40 and 27.)
- The Red Sox won the first World Series in 1903 and also won the pennant the next year but there was no World Series. They were back in the series as the Red Sox in 1912 and beat the Giants. They also beat the Phillies in 1915, the Dodgers in 1916 and the Cubs in 1918. They thus won 5 of the first 15 World Series. At that point, they were ahead of the A’s, who had won three, the White Sox and Cubs who had two each and the Giants, Pirates and Braves with one each. (The Braves, as the “Beaneaters”, had won five NL pennants from 1891-1898 so the “Royal Rooters”, who started as Beaneater fans and later switched to the Pilgrims- who played across the street at the time- won 11 championships in a 28 year period.) Harry Frazee then sold off the top players on the team and the Sox didn’t recover until the Ted Williams era. Even then they could win only one pennant- in 1946- and lost to the Cardinals in the World Series. Then came the Yaz era with pennants in 1967 and 1975 but losses to the Cardinals again and the Reds. They were back in 1986 against the Mets and lost again. But then came the 2004 win over the Cardinals and the 2007 victory over the Rockies. Total: 12 pennants, 7 championships. (Since then they’ve won two more championships in 2013 and 2018 and are now 14/9)
- The Cubs began as the Chicago White Stockings in 1871. They became the “Colts” in 1890 and the “Orphans” in 1898 before becoming the Cubs in 1903. They won the first national league pennant in 1876 and became the dominant team of the 1880’s with pennants in 1880-82, and 1885-86. They tied the St. Louis Browns of the American Association, 3-3-1 in a World Series that was never finished due to a dispute. The next year they lost to the Browns, who would later join the National League and change their uniform color from brown to cardinal, 2-4. In effect, it was a ‘World Series’ between the Cubs and the Caredinals! They didn’t win another pennant until a generation later, when they set a record by winning 116 games in 1906, only to lose to the cross-town White Sox in the World Series. They came back to beat Ty Cobb’s Tigers the next two years. They had the best record ever for a non-pennant winner in 1909, 104-49, (the Pirates went 110-42), and came back to win the pennant in 1910 but lost to the A’s in the series. Their great period was over but they made it back to the series six more times- losing to the Red Sox in 1918, the A’s in 1929, the Yankees in 1932, the Tigers in 1935, the Yankees again in 1938 and the Tigers again in 1945. That was the year when, (according to a legend made up by Mike Royko), a bar owner and his pet goat were refused entrance to Wrigley Field. He’s supposed to have put a curse on the Cubbies and they’ve never been back to a World Series since. (There’s been 63 of them.) And they haven’t won it in a century. Total: 16 pennants, 5 world championships, (counting 1876 and 1880-81 but not 1882 because the AA was in business but they didn’t play their champion). (The streak finally ended in 2016 so the Cubbies are now 17/6)
- The Cardinals began life as the St. Louis Browns of the American Association in 1882. They won four straight pennants from 1885-88 and that one World Series over the White Stockings. They also lost series to the Detroit Wolverines of the NL in 1887 and to the New York Giants in 1888. When the AA folded in 1891, they joined the NL and changed their name to the “Perfectos” in 1898, (they were decidedly imperfect, going 39-111), and then to the Cardinals in 1899. They were also-rans until Branch Rickey took over the team in the 1920’s and built baseball’s first farm system, which lead to the “Gashouse Gang” era, which produced pennants in 1926, 1928, 1930, 1931, and 1934. They split with the Yankees, then the Athletics and then beat the Tigers. It also produced the Stan Musial era, which got off to a rousing start with pennants in 1942-44 and 46, (Stan was in the service in ’45). They split with the Yankees, beat the cross-town Browns and then Williams’ Red Sox. Stan played until 1963 and then retired without winning another pennant. The Cardinals promptly won another World Series, over the Yankees in 1964 and then two more pennants in 1967-68, beating the Red Sox and losing to the Tigers. They then had a fallow period until the Whitey Herzog era, which produced pennants in 1982, 85 and 87. The beat the Brewers but lost to the Royals and Twins in the last two years. They came back to face the Red Sox in 2004 and beat the Tigers in 2006. Total: 21 pennants, 11 world championships. (They’ve since beaten the Rangers in 2011 but lost to the Red Sox in 2013 to move to 23/12)
- The Giants started out as the New York Gothams in 1883. Their owner, Chris Von Der Ahe saluted the team as “My Giants” two years later and they have been known by that name ever since. They won National League pennants and World Series over the AA champs in 1888-89, beating the Browns, (Cardinals) and the Brooklyn Bridegrooms, (the Dodgers- imagine a Giants-Dodgers World Series- they had one in 1889). The Giants then shrunk until John McGraw took over the team in 1903. In his 30 year tenure, McGraw won ten pennants. He refused to play the Pilgrims, (Red Sox) in 1904, but beat the Athletics in 1905, lost to them in 1911, the Red Sox in 1912, the A’s again in 1913 and the White Sox in 1917. He beat the Yankees in 1921-22 but lost to them in 1923 and to the Senators in 1924. He turned the team over to Bill Terry as player-manager in 1933 and they promptly beat the Senators in the World Series. Terry won two more pennants in 1936-37 but lost to the Yankees. The Giants then shrunk again until Leo Durocher and Willie Mays led them to pennants in 1951 and 1954. They lost to the Yankees but swept the Indians. The Giants then moved to San Francisco where they contended basically every year as long as Mays was there but were only able to win one pennant, (in 1962, after winning a playoff with the Dodgers), and lost to the Yankees again. After many trials, including almost moving a couple more times, they got back to the World Series in 1989 but fell victim to the A’s, (and the earthquake). They returned again in 2002 only to lose to the Angels. Total: 20 pennants and 7 world championships. (They came back to win the World Series in 2010, 2012 and 2014 to move to 24/11)
- The Dodgers were born as the Brooklyn Atlantics of the American Association in 1884. They became the Grays for three years, then the Bridgegrooms from 1888-1898, the, (not always superb) Superbas from 1899-1910, the (Trolley) Dodgers for a couple of years, then the Superbas again for a year. From 1914-1931, they were called the “Robins” after their popular manager, Wilbert Robinson. After his death, they reverted to the Dodgers and have been thus known ever since. The Bridegrooms won the AA title in 1889, (but lost the series to the Giants), then jumped to the NL and won the title there, tying the Louisville Colonels 3-3-1 in another abandoned series with the AA champs, which brought that event to an end. The Superbas were superb in 1899-1900. They were owned by the same people who owned the Baltimore Orioles, who had won NL pennants in 1894-96. The owners simply switched the best Oriole players to Brooklyn because they had a bigger ballpark and they won two more pennants there. But there was nothing more until Robbie’s Robins won pennants in 1916 and 1920, but lost the series to the Red Sox and Indians. But that was it until Durocher took over the team and won the 1941 pennant. Leo got suspended for the 1947 season and Burt Shotton led the team to another pennant and another in 1949. Chuck Dressen took over and won pennants in 1952 and 1953. Those teams all had something in common: the Yankees beat them every year. Walter Alston finally broke through, splitting with the Yankees in 1955-56. The team moved to Los Angeles in 1958 and somehow lost their “perpetual underdog” karma immediately, winning pennants in 1959, 1963, 1965 and 1966. They beat the White Sox, Yankees, and Twins before getting swept by the Orioles. Their farm system, (also a legacy of Branch Rickey), produced pennant winners in 1974, 1977, 1978, 1981 and 1988. They got beat by the A’s and twice by the Yankees but came back to beat those teams the last two years. The ballclub changed hands a couple of times since and the magnificent organization has sputtered a bit since but they are looking awfully good so far this year. Total: 22 pennants, 8 world championships, (including 1899-1900). (The Dodgers lost the 2017 and 2018 World Series to go to 24/8.)
The Yankees and the Red Sox thus total 51 pennants and 33 world championships. (Now 54/36.) The Cubs and Cardinals total 37 pennants and 16 world championships. (Now 40/18.) The Giants and Dodgers total 42 pennants and 15 world championships. (Now 46/19) When their players step into the batter’s box, they step into history.
(Sources: many, but primarily Baseball-Reference.com)
