In other news, I find myself oddly rooting for the Los Angeles Dodgers in the 2020 World Series. I should be rooting for the Tampa Bay Rays, the no-money, no-name squad that are massive underdogs and have no World Series titles to their name. In contrast, the Dodgers have some of the biggest names in baseball (Mookie, Cody, Clayton), the second-highest payroll of 2020 (to the Yankees), and six World Series championships.

True, their last title was in 1988, the Kirk Gibson World Series, which happened 10 years before the Rays organization, then known as the Devil Rays, was even born. More important, here's something else the Dodgers have that the Rays don't:

More World Series losses than any team in baseball history. 

I don't know why, but I've never looked at the World Series losses before. Like everyone, I count wins. I count rings, pennants, postseasons. But over the weekend I half-wondered about this hapless squad: Do the Dodgers have more World Series losses than anyone? More even than the Yankees, who have been to the World Series twice as often?

Turns out: Yes. Before this year, the Dodgers of Brooklyn and LA have been to the Series 20 times but won it only six, meaning, for those who learned their math at Burroughs Elementary in Sexy South Minneapolis, that they lost it 14 times. They're 6-14. The Yankees have lost it a lucky 13 times; they're 27-13. The only other team in double-digit WS losses is the Giants of New York and San Francisco: 8-12. 

For the curious, here's how the original 16 teams stack up when sorted by winning percentage:

I guess this could provide some solace to fans of the Pirates, for example. Sure, they haven't been to the World Series since 1979; but they haven't lost a World Series since 1927.

Whatever happens to the Dodgers this year, though, won't move them much in the standings. If they lose Games 6 and 7, they'll be tied with the Phillies for the second-worst World Series Winning Percentage (WSWP). If they win, they'll be tied with the Braves and Indians. That's what victory would mean to the Dodgers overall: a tie with the Indians. Not exactly glamour territory.

So anyway I'm rooting for the Dodgers.