March 15, 200422 yr Intersting snipit from an Article by Rob Neyer of ESPN. For one thing, not many teams in the history of pro sports leagues have played for a number of years in a five-team division. I don't mean to belittle what the Braves have done -- honest I don't -- and in fact I think they don't get enough credit, as a number of observers think the Braves' relative lack of postseason success says a lot more than it does. Also in fairness, what might be more impressive than those 12 division titles is this: in nine of those 12 seasons, the Braves not only had the best record in their division, they had the best record in their league. For the sake of comparison, over the last 12 seasons the Yankees finished with the best record in the American League "only" five times. One of those five times was in 1994, when the Yankees were sitting at 70-43 (.619) when the players decided to stop playing. The Braves had a good record, too: 68-46. Not good enough for first place, though. Not even close, as the Expos finished 74-40, easily the best record in the majors. Oh, and by the way the Expos also finished six games ahead of the Braves (68-46), which in this scribe's opinion places a claim for "12 straight division titles" in serious doubt, if not completely down the toilet. I've heard two arguments for the validity of the streak, those being 1) there was no division title that season for anybody, since the season was artificially truncated, or 2) anyway, the Braves would quite possibly have come back to win the division, if only they'd had those additional seven weeks. About 2) sure it's possible and especially because the Braves were, of course, an excellent team whichever place they might have occupied on August 12, but six games is a lot of games and the Expos were pretty damn good, too. As for 1) please don't bother with this tired and silly argument. The 1994 season, limited though it was, produced batting titlists, strikeout kings, MVP's, and Cy Young Award winners. But we're not going to award division titles ... why, exactly? Look, I wasn't any happier about the strike than you were. But if you have the best record when the season ends, you win. And as much as we might like to forget the worst season in the game's long history, I think we owe it to the great city of Montreal, its baseball fans, and the Expos themselves to remember that in 1994 les Expos most certainly did win their division.
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