Waiting For a Championship

You are a Kansas City Chiefs fan. You are familiar with the word: patience.

Whether you jumped the red and gold bandwagon in the 1960s, or were transformed into an Arrowhead maniac in the 1990s, you have waited for the moment to hold that index finger a loft and scream “we’re No. 1.” In a never ending belief that ultimate victory was possible, you have lived through rebuilding after rebuilding – Paul Wiggin to Marv Levy to John Mackovic and on and on, to now year No. 2 of Pioli/Haley.

Still, no Lombardi Trophy has moved into Arrowhead Stadium since January 11, 1970. The Super Bowl IV champion Chiefs raised the trophy that day after their victory over the Minnesota Vikings in New Orleans.

Since then, the team has played 40 seasons of football without another league title. Your frustration makes you think nobody has waited as long for a return to a championship season as Chiefs fans.

You would be wrong, very wrong. When it comes to waiting for a title, there’s a lot of company in the misery. In fact, when it comes to the longest wait for a championship, fans of the Chiefs aren’t even in the discussion. Among the four major professional sports leagues that play in North America – Major League Baseball, NFL, NBA and NHL – there are 19 other franchises that have waited longer than the 40 seasons that Chiefs fans have been without a title.

There are 122 total franchises in the four sports leagues. That means 16 percent of the teams have waited longer than the Chiefs. (Here’s a complete list of the teams and how long they have waited for a championship.)

That group is led by the so-called “Loveable Losers” from the North Side of Chicago: the Cubs. They’ve played a remarkable 101 seasons since they won the World Series. After the Cubs, there are four other baseball teams, eight NFL clubs, four in the NHL and two in the NBA that have waited 41 years or more.

That number could drop to 18 with this year’s Stanley Cup Finals. The last time the Chicago Blackhawks raised Lord Stanley’s hardware was in 1961. But they have a chance to end the drought at 48 seasons if they can beat the Philadelphia Flyers in the final round that started this weekend.

Those eight NFL teams that have waited longer than the Chiefs for a title are Detroit (52 years), Philadelphia (49), Minnesota (49), San Diego (46), Atlanta (44), Buffalo (44), Cincinnati (43) and the New York Jets (41). The Vikings, Falcons and Bengals have never won a league championship.

Of those 122 franchises, 43 have never won a championship. The baseball Giants won the 1954 World Series when they were the New York Giants. But since their move to San Francisco in 1958, they’ve not won a title. The Vikings and Houston Astros began life within a year of each other in 1961-62 and have never won their league’s championship.

Heck, Chiefs fans you aren’t even the longest waiting fan base in the state of Missouri. That would fall to the followers of the St. Louis Blues. They began play in the NHL in 1967, reached the Stanley Cup finals in 1970 and haven’t sniffed the trophy since.

Fans of the Chiefs would welcome a chance to win the Lombardi, an appearance of any kind in the Super Bowl. That too hasn’t happened since the ‘69 season. Only in 1993, when they reached the AFC Championship Game did they get close enough to touch the opportunity. Among the long-term franchises, that’s the seventh longest wait to just get into the championship round.

Knowing there are so many others who share the same unrequited devotion doesn’t make things any easier. But face it Chiefs fans, for just a few moments there’s solace in knowing others hurt worse than you.

Here are the fans that hurt the most. The highlighted digits are the number of seasons completed since the team won their last championship or began play.

101 Chicago Cubs

Last World Series victory: 1908, beat the Detroit Tigers in five games.

Last World Series appearance: 1945, lost to the Tigers in seven games.

To put into perspective how long it’s been since the Cubs won a title know this: the other three professional leagues did not exist when Chicago beat the Detroit Tigers in five games to win the club’s second consecutive World Series.

The last time they had a chance to win the Series, the Cubs lost to those same Tigers in seven games in 1945. From that misery came more: the Curse of the Billy Goat. The story goes that tavern owner Billy Sianis was at Wrigley Field with his pet goat; Sianis owned the Billy Goat Tavern where he kept his pet Murphy. Sianis bought two tickets to game four of the ‘45 Series but Cubs management refused him admission with the goat, saying that animals were not allowed in the park and the animal smelled.

Legend has it that Sianis stood outside Wrigley and shouted “Them Cubs they ain’t gonna win no more.”

And they have yet to even make the Series since. They were within several outs of a NLCS victory over San Diego in 1984 before Leon Durham’s error allowed the Padres to score the winning runs. In the NLCS in 2003, they held a 3-2 lead in games and a 3-0 lead in the eighth inning of Game No. 6. That’s when Steve Bartman intervened, interfering with a fly ball into the left corner that allowed the Florida Marlins back in the game. They went on to win the seventh and deciding game.

It’s now been 64 seasons since that last World Series appearance.

61 Cleveland Indians

Last World Series victory: 1948, beat the Boston Braves in six games.

Last World Series appearance: 1997, lost to the Florida Marlins in seven games.

The Indians history since winning the ‘48 Series has featured brief moments of excellence, swallowed by years – no decades of poor baseball. In the 34 seasons between 1960 through 1993, only once did the Indians finish higher than fourth in the standings and that was a third-place spot in 1968.

In that ‘97 Series, the Indians made history by become the first team to lose the World Series after carrying a lead into the bottom of the ninth inning in game seven; the Marlins tied it in the ninth off reliever Jose Mesa and then won the game in the 11th inning.

Back in 1954, the Indians finished the regular season with a remarkable 111-43 record, but were swept in the World Series by the New York Giants. That series featured the famous Willie Mays over his head catch in centerfield on a shot hit by Cleveland’s Vic Wertz.

As recently as 2007, the Indians were a heartbeat away from the Series. They led the Boston three games to one in the ALCS, but then lost three straight to the Red Sox.

Indians history also includes a curse, the Colavito Curse. That came down in 1960 when they traded fan favorite Rocky Colavito to Detroit for Harvey Kuenn by GM Frank Lane. Colavito always said he never put a curse on the team, but for 30 years after he left they were the stumble bums of the type that were seen in the 1989 movie Major League.

52 Detroit Lions

Last NFL championship: 1957 with a victory over the Cleveland Browns.

Last NFL title game appearance: 1957.

Only once since that ‘57 title have the Lions gotten close to competing for another championship; that was in 1991 when they lost the NFC Championship Game to the Washington Redskins. They are 1-9 in post-season games in the last 52 years.

Despite having one of the greatest running backs in league history in Barry Sanders, the Lions couldn’t win. While there is no recorded curse against the franchise, something must be out there, especially after the Lions went 0-16 in the 2008 NFL season.

52 San Francisco Giants

Last won World Series: 1954 as the New York Giants, beating Cleveland in four games.

Last World Series appearance: 2002, losing to the Anaheim Angels in seven games.

In 1958, the Giants moved from the Polo Grounds in New York to San Francisco, where they eventually played in newly built Candlestick Park. Cold, windy and often foggy, the Stick had some of the worst weather conditions in baseball, but still the Giants could not take advantage of the edge. They’ve never won the Series while in San Francisco.

It’s not that they haven’t gotten close. The most recent opportunity came in 2002, when they held a lead of 3 games to 2 over the Angels in the Series, and a 5-0 lead on the scoreboard in the bottom of the seventh inning in game six.

They won the National League in 1989, but lost the Bay Area Series to Oakland in four games, in a Series that was halted by the earthquake that hit during game three at Candlestick.

The most painful moment for the Giants came in 1962 in the Series against the Yankees. It was the bottom of the ninth in game seven, two out and San Francisco had runners on second and third. Big Willie McCovey smacked a shot that was caught by a leaping Bobby Richardson for the third and final out.

49 Philadelphia Eagles

Last NFL title: 1960, beat Green Bay

Last championship game appearance: 2004, lost Super Bowl to New England.

The last time the Eagles won a title was so long ago they still had a man who played both offense and defense: Hall of Famer Chuck Bednarik.

And it’s not like the Eagles haven’t had their chances since ‘60; they made the playoffs 18 times since then, including appearing in five NFC Championship Games in eight years in the last decade. But they won just one of those games and moving on to the Super Bowl where they lost to the Patriots.

Before that, they reached the Super Bowl after the 1980 season, when Dick Vermeil led them to New Orleans. But the Eagles were overrun by the Oakland Raiders in that game.

49 Minnesota Vikings

Last NFL title: have never won league championship.

Last Super Bowl appearance: 1976, lost in Super Bowl to Oakland.

Call this one the “Curse of Lamar.” When the late Lamar Hunt was putting together the American Football League in 1959, one of the most enthusiastic partners he picked up was Max Winter of Minneapolis. The Twin Cities was very excited about having a pro football team.

The AFL scheduled a league meeting and its first draft late in 1959 and the site for the get-together was Minneapolis. It was at that meeting when Winter and his partners announced they were pulling out of the AFL, and would go into the NFL instead.

That’s why it was only appropriate that the last game involving the AFL was Super Bowl IV, where Hunt’s team badly beat the Vikings. It was the first of four Super Bowl appearances in eight years for Minnesota. They ended up losing to the Chiefs, dolphins, Steelers and Raiders.

Overall, the Vikings have had 26 seasons in the playoffs without a title.


6 Responses to “Waiting For a Championship”

  • May 29, 2010  - bhive01 says:

    It was easy to fall in love with the Red & Gold during the 90s when I was in high school. I know a lot of people hated Marty ball, but he won a lot of games in the regular season. Despite the lack of wins in the post-season, they usually did really well. The division was also really competitive. Denver and Oakland were always good games, win or lose.

    I would rather have a consistent team that at least makes a run at the playoffs than a team that wins one year and tanks in the next 5. Even it that means not winning another Superbowl ever, I’d rather have a consistently winning team. It’s been hard to watch the last few years, but things are clearly picking up. I’m certainly hopeful for a winning record in the next two years.


  • May 29, 2010  - craig says:

    I’m glad I was alive in 1970, because I do not think the Chiefs will win another superbowl in my lifetime.


  • May 29, 2010  - Sean says:

    The Detroit Lions have the curse of Bobby Layne. They traded the QB to the Steelers in ‘58 and he said they “wouldn’t win for 50 years”. They concluded the 50th year of the curse with an 0-16 season, the worst in league history.

    Matthew Stafford played at the same high school as Bobby Layne. Maybe he really is their savior.


  • May 29, 2010  - ED says:

    I want to see this team win a Super Bowl. I do want a consistent winnner, but I do want to see it eventually have us end up raising the Lombardy trophy. I think we have the right mix finally to deliver that goal. I think we have a GM that understands what it takes to build a Super Bowl winning team. I also think we have a head coach who has the blueprint for success on how to win. With Haley learning from a guy like Parcells much like Sean Peyton did. To me its just a matter of time before this guy gets its done here.


  • May 30, 2010  - The Morning Fix: Afternoon Edition | Arrowhead Addict | A Kansas City Chiefs blog says:

    [...] Waiting For a Championship-BobGretz.com Share this post: [...]


  • May 30, 2010  - RickyP says:

    For those interested in Detroit’s “curse”, look here
    https://curseofbobbylayne.com/wordpress/

    Technically the Vikings did win a league Championship when they beat the Cleveland Browns prior to Super Bowl IV as the NFL and AFL (though merged) were (technically) still two seperate leagues.


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