Yankees and the AL East: 25 years as baseball’s best division

The Orioles

Baltimore is an ancient baseball town and the Orioles have a rich and proud history. The team started in 1901 and has called both Milwaukee (the Brewers) and St. Louis (the Browns) home.

But since 1954 the team has resided in Baltimore, where it chose it’s name both from the state Bird of Maryland—the Oriole, as you might have guessed—and because that was a traditional team name for local clubs starting back in the 1800’s.

I write all of that because the Birds deserve the respect. They have appeared in six World Series as the Orioles, winning half, the last one in 1983. That might not seem like much, but there are a lot of teams that would take three WS since 1966, including the Cubs, Indians, White Sox, Braves…the list could really go on and on.

At Least they’ve Contributed to the Greater Good

And even in the last quarter century, the O’s have had two decent runs. They made the ALCS in ’96 and ’97, losing to the Yankees in the former year. 1998 saw them start a rebuild that would last until 2012, when they would announce their progress by winning the Wild Card game but losing the ALDS to the Yankees, once again.

However, they returned in 2014 to win the division (96-66) and become the AL East’s only qualifier for postseason play. Their loss to the Royals in the ALCS, however, would be their most recent high water mark. They missed the playoffs in 2015 and were eliminated by the Blue Jays in last year’s Wild Card game.

Three LCS appearances and no World Series wins in 25 years isn’t much but it still shows more success than some teams, such as the Athletics and Astros, and is better than Milwaukee and San Diego combined.

And now on to the World Series winners.