Pomrenke: The World Series champs … in breaking training

From SABR member Jacob Pomrenke at The National Pastime Museum on March 4, 2016:

As the Baltimore Orioles gather for spring training in Sarasota, Florida, they’ll be trying to end an obscure 91-year baseball drought. If you’re not aware of this one, well, you’re not alone.

Major League teams have held their spring training in Sarasota almost every year since 1924—and not a single one of those teams has won the World Series at the end of the season. Entering 2016, 33 spring-training cities in nine different states have played host to baseball’s champions, as they get ready for the upcoming campaign. But Sarasota, one of the top tourist destinations on Florida’s Gulf Coast, is not among them.

That first year, in 1924, John McGraw’s New York Giants trained in Sarasota and then played all the way to the 12th inning of Game 7 before falling to Walter Johnson and the Washington Senators in a fall classic for the ages. The Giants left Sarasota after four years without winning it all, and the Boston Red Sox soon followed them to town, training at Payne Park from 1933 to 1958. But despite the presence of future Hall of Famers like Jimmie Foxx, Lefty Grove, Ted Williams, and Bobby Doerr, the Red Sox only won one American League pennant, in 1946, the last time any Sarasota-based team even made it to the World Series. Boston’s well-documented World Series drought lasted through the end of the twentieth century until 2004. By then, the team had transferred its operations to nearby Fort Myers.

Read the full article here: http://www.thenationalpastimemuseum.com/article/world-series-champs-breaking-training



Originally published: March 4, 2016. Last Updated: March 4, 2016.