There’s a not-so-new reality for MLB fans, and it comes down to this: if you are emotionally invested in a small-market baseball club, you better adopt a big-market team to root for, too, since your little-team-that-can’t will never win the World Series. This has become clear now since the post-1994 strike economic disparity that has dominated the sport for almost three decades now. There is no chance for the little guys.

With the TV ratings for the World Series being the worst ever, it’s clear most people don’t care about this sport any more as the owners continue to line their pockets at the expense of the fans in small metropolitan areas . Let’s look at the small-market teams in MLB and note the last time they won the World Series:

  • Milwaukee (38th-biggest TV market): never
  • Cincinnati (36th): 1990
  • Kansas City (33rd): 2014
  • San Diego (30th): never
  • Baltimore (28th): 1983
  • Pittsburgh (26th): 1979
  • St. Louis (24th): 2011
  • Cleveland (19th): 1948
  • Miami (18th): 2003
  • Denver (16th): never
  • Minneapolis (15th): 1991
  • Detroit (14th): 1984
  • Tampa Bay (13th): never
  • Seattle (12th): never
  • Phoenix (11th): 2001

Average years since the last World Series win? Almost 36. Ouch. Kansas City and St. Louis—both ironically in the state of Missouri, which has the 19th-highest population of all the states—have both won it all in the last 20 years, but otherwise, it’s a barren wasteland for small markets when it comes to winning the MLB championship. Now, let’s look at the Top 10 TV markets and their most-recent Fall Classic victories:

  • San Francisco (10th): 2014
  • Boston (9th): 2018
  • Washington, DC (8th): 2019
  • Houston (7th): 2022
  • Atlanta (6th): 2021
  • Dallas (5th): 2023
  • Philadelphia (4th): 2008
  • Chicago (3rd): 2016
  • Los Angeles (2nd): 2020
  • New York (1st): 2009

Every metropolitan area on this second list has seen a team win a World Series in the last 15 years. It’s interesting to note that former MLB Commissioner Bud Selig, whose grave we will defecate on every year as soon as he finally dies, once owned the Milwaukee Brewers. A truly corrupt man, he has sacrificed his own team’s on-the-field fortunes for the lining of his pockets instead, with the economic vision he sowed.

As Northern California natives, we grew up rooting for the Oakland Athletics and the San Francisco Giants; we got to see the A’s win a lot early in our lives. The Giants? Not so much, and we abandoned the S.F. team once it embraced the Devil himself. With the Oakland franchise moving to Las Vegas soon, we probably will embrace the Southern California Evil Empire, because … why the fuck not? Blue is the warmest color.

So if you’re a fan of the team from the first group, the poor ones, pick a team from the second group, the rich ones, so you can experience some sort of baseball happiness … eventually. Or better yet, just throw the sport to the curb for good. No point in giving your money to an enterprise where there is no payback, especially when winning teams have to both spend a lot and cheat to win these days. Again, thanks, Bud.