As most fans now know, the Chicago White Sox set the record for futility in 2024 with the most losses in a single season with 121. This mark “bested” the 1962 New York Mets, who previously held the record with 120 losses. Although this is a low point in White Sox history, they can in some ways still state that they are not the worst in two metrics: wins and in overall win percentage. In those two categories, the 1962 Mets still hold the record. Despite the White Sox record 121 losses; they did win 41 games, while the Mets were victorious in only 40 games.
The White Sox earned a 0.253 win percentage based upon their 41-121 this year. If you look around the internet, it will list the Mets win-loss mark as 40-120 or a (0.250) win percentage that year, but their actual record that year was 40-120-1. Yes, that Mets team had a tie in that year along with one rainout, which resulted in them only playing 161 games.
Tie games are exceedingly rare in baseball, but the calculation of a tie in terms of win percentage is fairly straightforward. This just requires that you divide the tie by two and allocate each portion to the win and the loss column to calculate the win percentage. In this case, the one tie for the Mets gives them 40.5 wins on the year and divided by 161 games for a 0.252 win percentage (rounded), so still short of the White Sox 0.253 percentage.
Therefore, hold your heads up high White Sox fans you are still not the worst in terms of wins and win percentage as the ’62 Mets still hold that distinction.
Note that we base the records for futility in this discussion on the current 162 game season, which the American and National Leagues adopted in 1961 and 1962, respectively. Prior to these years, teams played 154 games, since 1904. Therefore, during this Modern Era of baseball there are actually worse teams than the White Sox and the Mets in terms of wins and winning percentage. The worst being the 1916 Philadelphia Athletics, who went 36-117, which earned them a dismal 0.235 win percentage.
Prior to the Modern Era of baseball (1886-1900) there are even worse teams in terms of wins and win percentages than that 1916 Philadelphia Athletics club. In fact, there were six teams with less wins and five teams with a worse win percentage than that Athletics team during this era. The all-time worst team being the 1899 Cleveland Spiders, who ended up with a record of 20-134 and a win percentage of just 0.130. By the way, in our opinion, Cleveland should have chosen to rename their team Spiders rather than Guardians in 2022, which is such a blah name. That is another blog post though.
Before we wrap up this post, we thought we would mention that some corners of the internet do not even note the Mets tie game as part of their record. It was September 9, 1962 and the Mets played the then Houston Colts 45s at Colt Stadium, which predated the Astrodome. The game per that box score was a 7-7 tie called after eight innings. What was interesting was that game was not cut short by rain, but rather by a self-imposed curfew that did not allow any inning to start after 7 pm in Houston at that time. There is an excellent recounting of that game at Faith and Fear in Flushing as well as at the Ultimate Mets site for those wanting further details about that contest.
Finally, we should note that it is ironic that two of the worst teams in the game of baseball were managed by two men, who many consider the greatest managers in the game. Those being Casey Stengel who managed that 1962 Mets team and Connie Mack the manager for the 1916 Philadelphia Athletics. Both these men are considered legends of the games, but despite all their successes they were also connected with the two of the worst teams in baseball history.
Baseball Purist 
Leave a comment