Sunday, October 08, 2006

Democratic Yankees

The New York Yankees where eliminated from the baseball playoffs yesterday. Although the Yankees are the richest and most successful baseball club in the Major Leagues their failure is not really surprising: the Republicans control the White House!

The Yankees have developed an inability to win World Series Championships when the US President is a Republican. The last time the Yankees did so was in 1958 under Eisenhower.

Here's the hard facts:

- Only 7 of the 26 Yankee Championships have been during Republican Presidents.
- Of the 11 Republican Presidents that have held office since the World Series began in 1903 only 3 saw Yankees win the WS: Coolidge (1923, 1927 and 1928), Hoover (1932) and Eisenhower (1953,1956 and 1958).
- The Yankees could not win during terms of T. Roosevelt, Taft, Harding, Nixon, Ford, Reagan, G. H. Bush or G.W.Bush.

The most uncanny thing is, however, the way the Yankees have flourished in the short years under Democratic Presidents Kennedy (wining twice; 1961 and 1962), Carter (twice: 1977 and 1978) and Clinton (Four times; 1996, 1998,1999 and 2000). Under F.D. Roosevelt and Truman the Yankees won 6 and 5 championships respectively. The only Democrat Presidents who did not preside over Yankee World Series wins were whose names ended on 'son': Wilson and Johnson.

The Yankee organization and Yankees fans better be hoping for a Democratic win in 2008, but can be reassured that the only potential Democrat with a 'son' name, Bill Richardson, is only a 'long-shot' candidate.

4 Comments:

At 10 October, 2006 09:49, Blogger Marcel said...

Excellent research and stats. I'm going to link this article on the 7th Inning Stretch.

 
At 14 October, 2006 14:06, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Great bit of research you've done! Thanks for the info and I am OK with losing if it means a Republican is in office.

Got any research like this on the Premiership?

 
At 15 October, 2006 12:10, Blogger Torsten Pedersen said...

Danny,

Well there's of course Harold Wilson (Labour PM 1964-70 & 1974-1976), who famously remarked: "Have you noticed that we only win the World Cup under Labour governments?"

Some quick internet research shows that Liverpool have won 12 of their 18 championships under Conservative PM's.* Which is not surprising as the Conservative party has been the dominant political party in the UK throughout most of the 20th century.

Anyway, here's the breakdown of Liverpool championships;

Conservative: 12 (1901, 1923, 1964, 1973, 1979, 1980, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1986, 1988, 1990. Note: the last 7 was under Thatcher.)
Liberal: 2 (1906, 1922)
Labour: 4 (1947, 1966, 1976, 1977)

For Manchester United, which I believe you follow, the statistics are mixed:

Liberal: 2 (1908, 1911)
Conservative: 6 (1952,1956,1957,1993,1994,1995).
Labour: 7 (1965,1967,1997,1999,2000, 2001,2003).


* Because PM's come and go at different times, I've considered who was PM in May of each year when the League usually finishes.

 
At 15 October, 2006 12:15, Blogger Torsten Pedersen said...

Correction:

The last 8 Liverpool championships were under Thatcher: 1979, 1980, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1986, 1988 and 1990.

 

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