A Little History

I hadn't seen it anywhere, so I decided to look it up myself. The question? Have there been other teams to win four straight in the LCS, and then the first two in the World Series? And if so, how have they done?

The first thing I learned is that you can't go back very far, as the LCS did not become best-of-seven until 1985. But since then, there have been two such occurrences. Here they are.

1985 St Louis Cardinals. The Cards lost the first two of the NLCS to the Dodgers in LA, then won the next four. They then went on the road to KC in the World Series and won the first two. Their luck ran out however, as they eventually lost to the Royals in seven.

1995 Atlanta Braves. The Braves swept Cincinnati, then won the first two against Cleveland at home. They never trailed in the series, and finished off Manny's Indians (with the 100-44 record) for their only championship.

That's not really great news for Red Sox Nation. I was hoping to find much more than a fifty percent success rate. If you want to look on the bright side, there have been teams that have won six in row in different formats - 3 in the LCS and 3 in the Series, 2 in the LCS and 4 in the Series - and all of those have won Championships, most recently the Yankees in both 1998 and 1999.

Go Sox!