Winning the World Series is not easy. Well, it’s actually extremely hard and 6 teams have never won the World Series. Last season, the Los Angeles Dodgers won the first title since 1988. In 2016, the Chicago Cubs became the world champion for the first time since 1908. Additionally, it’s even harder to win it in two consecutive years because no team has done it in this century. The Dodgers would like to win back-to-back World Series championships. But, there is something to overcome.
The World Series was settled in 1903 and back then, it was a best-of-nine series. Nevertheless, there was no world series in 1904 because the NL champion Giants refused to play the 1904 AL champ Boston Pilgrims. In 1905, the World Series became a tradition and has been a best-of-seven series, except for 1919-1921.
Now, let’s see those teams that won back-to-back World Champions.
In baseball history, we can see that 14 teams did successfully win back-to-back World Series Champions. Among these 14 teams, 3 teams are from the National League and 11 teams are from the American League. The Chicago Cubs won the World Series titles in 1907 and 1908 and became the first team to win back-to-back Championships. However, the Cubs fans did wait for a while to win the third title.
The Philadelphia Athletics won back-to-back titles twice. They won two consecutive Championships in 1910 and 1911. Also, they did it again in 1929 and 1930. Later on, the team moved to Kansas City and became the Kansas City Athletics. The Athletics were not a successful team in Kansas City since they didn’t have a winning season. After playing 13 seasons in Kansas City, the Athletics started a new chapter in Oakland in 1968. The Oakland Athletics won four World Series titles. In particular, they built a dynasty between 1972 and 1974, winning the three consecutive World Championships.
The Boston Red Sox are a well-known name in baseball and have won 8 World Series Championships. In Red Sox history, they won back-to-back titles in 1915 and 1916.
The New York Giants won 5 World Series titles before moving to San Francisco. The team played 4 straight World Series from 1921 to 1924 and won the titles in 1921 and 1922.
When it comes to the World Series Championships, you can’t ignore the New York Yankees, a team that has won 27 titles. The Yankees won the first title in 1923 and won the back-to-back Championships in 1927 and 1928. From 1936 to 1939, the Yankees won four straight World Series Championships and there’s no doubt that it was a dynasty. Another long-term success was from 1949 to 1953, the New York Yankees won five World Series in a row, the longest championship streak in MLB history. We probably won’t see this happen again. In addition, the Yankees won the back-to-back titles in 1961 and 1962. And the most recent Yankees dynasty began in 1998. The Yankees beat the Padres in 1998, the Yankees defeated the Braves in 1999 and they won the subway World Series against the Mets in 2000.
The Big Red Machine dominated in baseball in the 70’s and they won two straight World Series in 1975 and 1976.
The Blue Jays won the Fall Classics twice, the first one was in 1992 and the other one was in 1993. The most unforgettable moment is probably Joe Carter’s walk-off home run in Game 6 of the 1993 World Series.
As baseball history tells us, only 14 teams had experienced winning back-to-back World Series titles. And only 3 of them were the National League teams. The last time that a National League team won back-to-back titles was the Cincinnati Reds in the 70’s. We haven’t seen a National League team win back-to-back World Series for more than 40 years. The Dodgers are a great team and have won 8 straight NL West titles. But, to win two consecutive World Series Championships, there are still challenges ahead.
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