In much the same way that sports magazine should probably stick to talking about sports, business magazines should probably consider sticking to talking about business.
↵Take Forbes Magazine, for example.
↵They’ve put together a list of the “Worst World Series Champions Of All Time,” and topping the list is none other than the 1987 Minnesota Twins.
↵↵↵In the case of the ‘87 Twins, No. 1 on our list of the worst champions, the standard deviation for the American League that year was 0.064, meaning that a “typical” team’s record was within 64 percentage points of 0.500 (i.e. a winning percentage ranging from 0.436 to 0.564). The Twins’ 0.525 winning percentage fell within that standard range, translating to a score of less than one standard deviation above the 0.500 mean.
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Yeah, yeah, yeah, blah, blah, blah. So the Twins squeaked into the post-season and rode what was the best home-field advantage in baseball to a couple of upsets and a World Series title. I don’t think anybody will deny that.
↵But this sort of reminds me of an old joke: What do you call the guy that finishes last in his class in medical school? You call him “doctor.”
↵And what do you call the “worst World Series champions of all time?” That’s right. . .you still call them “champions.”
↵Maybe Forbes should make a list of the greatest teams to not win the World Series. Then they could go around and ask players from both groups who’s happier with their accomplishments. Heck, I bet I could give you the answer right now.