COMMENTS:
Only fools pay attention to betting odds. The Yankees were the early favorite to win the 1978 pennant, the Red Sox were a long shot, yet the teams finished the schedule with identical records. Kansas City and Texas were both at 7-2, yet the Royals won the Western Division title while the Rangers, who finished tied for second with the Angels, had only the American League's sixth best record.
The poor house is filled with individuals who bet on the favorite. There are just too many variables for the "experts" to predict what will occur with a high degree of certainty. Remember, the favorite is merely the team that the "experts" believe has the best CHANCE to win. It doesn't mean that they actually are GOING to win. The only sure thing is that the team that wins the last game of the year will be the World Champion.
Before divisional play, it was a little less chancy to predict a winner. Beginning with the 1920s, it was fairly safe to pick the Yankees. Each league had only eight teams, there were no playoffs, and free agency would not occur for another fifty years. With Ruth, Gehrig, Lazzeri, and Dickey, and then DiMaggio, Berra, and Henrich,and then Mantle, Skowron, Howard, and Maris, and with strong pitching staffs, the little kids in Mrs. Bloomberg's first grade class could pick the pennant winner. That started to change in the 1960s.
The American League expanded to ten teams in 1961 and the National League followed suit in 1962. Dan Topping and Del Webb sold the Yankees to CBS, who used the team as a tax write off, and then in 1969, both leagues expanded again. The new format divided each league into two six-team divisions. Each league's division winners would play a best of five playoff series to determine the pennant winner. Not only couldn't Mrs. Bloomberg's first grades pick the winners---neither could the "experts."
In 1966, in the ten team American League, the Boston Red Sox finished a dismal ninth, 26 games behind the Orioles. They were not expected to do much in 1967. All they did was win the pennant, becoming the first team ever to finish ninth and then win the pennant the following season. Of course, they were the Red Sox so they lost the World Series to the Cardinals in seven games, a defeat they would avenge thirty seven years later.
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