CHICAGO — A mere mention of the year 1991 elicited a pained groan from Sandy Alomar Jr. as he leaned against a railing in the Cleveland Guardians’ dugout.

Three decades have passed. Alomar played for seven teams across 20 seasons, appeared in 49 playoff games, won an All-Star Game MVP award and supplied a slew of unforgettable moments in a big-league uniform. He has coached for a consistent contender in Cleveland for 15 years.

And yet, he still can’t shake memories of that miserable ’91 season. That’s what losing can do — not the sort of losing that leaves players, coaches and fanbases disgruntled, but the degree of losing that beats the soul out of someone who can’t escape it.

“It hits you in the face every day,” said Cleveland pitcher Alex Cobb, a member of the 115-loss Baltimore Orioles of 2018. “Wake up, do it again. Wake up, do it again.”

Scanning the dugout of the historically inept Chicago White Sox during an early-September series at a mostly empty Guaranteed Rate Field triggered some flashbacks for Cobb.

He signed with the Orioles in late March 2018 and played catch-up for much of the year. By the time Cobb felt like himself, the Orioles were 40 games out of first place and he still had another dozen starts to make. He focused on sharpening his mechanics for the next season.

“You’re just trying to get through the day,” Cobb said. “You find ways.”

Of course, no one’s going to pity a big-leaguer who earns a seven-figure salary, enjoys ample leg room on charter flights, gorges on infinite servings of red meat at Brazilian steakhouses on road trip off days and throws a ball around for a couple of hours every five days.

“I don’t recall anyone feeling sorry for us,” said Orioles outfielder Cedric Mullins, who blossomed in 2021, when Baltimore lost 110 games. “In fact, it felt like it was blood in the water at that point.”

Still, it takes a mental toll on those completing nine fruitless innings night after night. No one knows it better than the White Sox, who broke the 1962 New York Mets’ record of 120 losses on Friday. Chicago was eliminated from playoff contention in mid-August. They sit more than 40 games out of fourth place in their division, a situation so bleak it’d test anyone’s drive.

“It’s definitely challenging to stay locked in and motivated,” said Ryan O’Hearn, a member of a pair of Royals teams that lost more than 100 games.

In 2021, Mullins became the first player since the franchise moved to Baltimore in 1954 to tally 30 homers and 30 stolen bases in a season. But he admits “it just wasn’t as fun” because the team was dreadful. His production dipped over the past three seasons, but he said he has enjoyed the experiences more.

“It’s funny,” he said, “when we go through stints like (the club’s recent funk), it feels like we’re losing. And I’m like, ‘You all have no idea.’”

When Torey Lovullo steered the Arizona Diamondbacks through a 52-110 season in 2021, his 25-minute commutes home from Chase Field were “dark.” He would sing along to Supertramp or Led Zeppelin to decompress and distract himself from whatever daunting matchup awaited his club the following day.

“I tried to go home and just be present at home,” Lovullo said, “and that became harder and harder throughout the course of the season.”

Several players said they would linger at home longer before heading to the ballpark, preferring not to spend an extra nanosecond in the monotonous misery.

“It can feel like a project to get to the stadium itself,” said Cincinnati Reds reliever Buck Farmer.

Farmer led the 2019 Detroit Tigers in appearances, with 73. The Tigers were 29-44 when he pitched and 18-70 when he didn’t.

“We lost a lot,” he said. “In my entire tenure there, we lost a lot.”

One hundred and fourteen games in 2019, to be precise. Enough to draw comparisons to the 2003 Tigers, who rallied during the final week of the season to avoid joining the ’62 Mets in the pantheon of futility.

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“September was really hard,” said Matthew Boyd, who made a team-high 32 starts for the 2019 Tigers.

Both ex-Tigers pitchers, however, agreed there’s not much difference between 114 losses and, say, 98, the number of games Detroit dropped the previous two years.

“It’s all hard,” Boyd said.

“Either way sucks,” Farmer said. “Either way you draw it up, not having a winning season is tough. It sucks to lose.”

The clubhouse culture “can dictate how much that sucks,” Farmer said. In 2019, for instance, “it was like showing up for a 9-to-5, which sucks.” Sensing a theme here, or at least noticing a particular word that encapsulates the effects of perpetual losing on the psyche?

“It could have been a lot better,” said catcher Jake Rogers, another member of the 2019 Tigers. “It’s like the (2024) White Sox. You get to a point where everyone is like, ‘We’ve lost how many?’ That part sucks sometimes, but we weren’t thinking that (in) the moment. But you look back at it and it’s like, ‘Man, 114 is a lot.’”

In 2022, the Reds started the season 3-22, but Farmer insists no one would know based on the energy in the clubhouse. That can depend on the composition of the roster. When winning proves impractical, team goals tend to slip down players’ priority lists.

“I will never be OK with losing,” said Los Angeles Dodgers infielder Miguel Rojas.

Late in the Miami Marlins’ march to 105 losses in 2019, the players held a meeting after a series in Arizona. Rojas asked his teammates “to look themselves in the mirror and look up (other) rosters (to determine) how many more teams you could play for today,” a method of motivation he said he was taught when he broke into the big leagues.

“Being eliminated a month before the season’s over,” Rojas said, “it’s hard, because the fans feed off that, too. … It’s really hard to ask people to come to the ballpark. So it’s really hard to come to the ballpark every day. It’s really low-energy. You’re finding your own motivation to play the game. But you have to be professional. You have to show up every single day because you’re getting paid.”

“Everybody’s in a certain spot in their career,” Cobb said. “If you’re going to arbitration, you’re trying to fluff as many numbers or trying to prevent bad numbers from happening. If you’re older, you’re on a contract, you’re probably just trying not to get hurt, trying to work on stuff for the next year.”

And if you’re new to the major leagues?

“On a team like that, there are a lot of guys who are super excited to be here,” Cobb said. “You don’t get to ruin that for anyone. You don’t get to take other peoples’ joy away from being in the locker room.”

As the 2018 trade deadline approached, the Orioles dealt away Manny Machado, Zack Britton, Kevin Gausman, Darren O’Day, Jonathan Schoop and Brad Brach. In the second half, Cobb looked around the room and wondered who everyone was. He said the influx of young players ultimately “helped the mood.”

That youthful exuberance can help to dispel feelings of nihilism. As Cobb described, “You’re putting the X over the days on the calendar, just trying to get through it.”

“It’s hard to find those bright spots,” Mullins said. “And those bright spots aren’t going to be looked at too often, just because (of) the team. You want to see the team perform. Individuals can’t do that on their own.”

Outfielder Austin Hays, like Mullins, broke out for the Orioles in 2021.

“You really have to dig into why you’re playing when you’re down 8-0 in the third inning,” said Hays, who credited the birth of his son for giving him proper perspective.

During a 102-loss season with the Oakland Athletics in 2022, catcher Stephen Vogt — now the Guardians’ manager — would encourage veteran players to be “an extension of the coaching staff,” said pitcher Cole Irvin. Vogt would engage the team’s young players about pitchers’ tendencies or reading hitters’ swings.

The most reassuring reminder Vogt provided?

“You’re what the 12-year-old version of yourself wanted to be,” Irvin said.

That 12-year-old self couldn’t wait to get to the field, no matter the team’s results of the previous day or week or month.

“It’s really hard,” Boyd said, “but it’s a balancing act. You have to have awareness. You’re going to fall out of line, and when you do, you have to give yourself grace to gently get back in.”

Those trudges to the finish line can be scarring, though.

As Alomar shook his head, reflecting on that 105-loss Cleveland season in 1991, his former teammate, Carlos Baerga, approached. Alomar stopped him and mentioned the infamous year. Baerga shouted like he was suffering from appendicitis and then recalled the most valuable bit of advice he received in his career. Hitting instructor Jose Morales told him: “Don’t get used to losing, because when you get used to losing, you get lazy.”

Alomar and Baerga came up together with the Padres and won minor-league championships in two of their final three years in the farm system. Then they were shipped to Cleveland, where the Indians lost so much they became a baseball punchline and played in front of small gatherings in a cavernous dungeon on the shores of Lake Erie.

They never sunk lower than in 1991. Cleveland went four decades without a playoff appearance after a trip to the World Series in 1954, but no iteration of the Indians lost more than that ’91 team did.

Alomar tore his groin partially off his pubic bone, which ended his season in late July when the club was sitting at 33-63. He still showed up to the ballpark every day, like a wounded animal slogging toward the slaughterhouse. All he needed to see in the opposing dugout were a few veteran players, and he knew.

“They’re probably gonna kick our butt,” Alomar said.

— The Athletic’s Sam Blum, Chad Jennings, C. Trent Rosecrans and Cody Stavenhagen contributed to this reporting.

(Top illustration: Meech Robinson / The Athletic; Photo of Torey Lovullo: Steph Chambers / Getty Images; Alex Cobb: Rick Madonik / Toronto Star via Getty Images; Luis Robert Jr.: Thearon W. Henderson / Getty Images; Sandy Alomar Jr.: Focus on Sport / Getty Images; Miguel Rojas: Mitchell Layton / Getty Images) 

Maarten Paes is the starting goalkeeper for Major League Soccer team FC Dallas. Yet he can walk down a busy street in Dallas, Texas, and nobody will notice him.

That is not the case online. Or in Indonesia.

Like his team-mates in the Indonesia national team, Paes is mobbed when he visits the country and has a huge social media following, far bigger than would be expected of a player yet to trouble football’s uppermost echelons.

Paes, 26, was born in the Netherlands but became an Indonesian citizen in April and was shocked by the rapid growth of his socials — he has 1.7million followers on Instagram and 1.2m on TikTok.

“You already know before it happens because you’ve seen it happen to other players. It’s such a huge country and they are all in love with soccer,” Paes says.

The 26-year-old knew he was eligible to play for Indonesia for a couple of years but at the end of last year, the team reached out to him again. “At that time, my grandmother was declining in her health,” he says.

“She’s from there and I spoke with her a lot about it. It was a thing I could do that would make her smile at the end of her life. That was huge for me. She said, ‘I would really love if you would do that’. So she encouraged me and it was an honour to do it for her.”

After news broke that he was switching to Indonesia, his life changed. “That was when I felt I needed to get a relationship with my social media in a different way, where you can put it away for a while because it can be a little bit overwhelming,” he says. “It’s surreal that suddenly you’re getting adored by so many followers and such big crowds.”

Paes, who represented the Netherlands at youth level, played his first two games for Indonesia during the recent break. He says the goalless draw against Australia, who were 109 places above Indonesia in FIFA’s world rankings, in front of more than 70,000 fans at the Gelora Bung Karno Stadium was eye-opening.

“It was like for the first time it all hit me, how big it is,” he says. “You see it on the internet, you see the numbers and you can’t really wrap your head around it. Then we couldn’t leave the hotel without security.”

Oxford United, who sit ninth in the Championship, England’s second tier, rarely generate big numbers on social media, but in August, a video they posted on Instagram hit 5.2million views.

Australian A-League side Brisbane Roar experienced a similarly curious upturn in engagement across social channels this month too. Like Oxford, Brisbane’s videos posted to Instagram are usually viewed thousands of times. Yet back-to-back videos posted to Instagram garnered 4.5million and 1.7million views for Roar.

The explanation? You’ve guessed it: the summer arrival of two Indonesian soccer superstars, in the form of the national team’s youngsters Marselino Ferdinan and Rafael Struick.

Ferdinan is a 20-year-old attacking midfielder who signed for Oxford from Belgian second-division side Deinze last month. Struick is a 21-year-old forward who joined Brisbane (owned by Indonesian conglomerate Bakrie Group) from ADO Den Haag, in Dutch football’s second tier, this month.

Neither arrived as a household name, at least in Europe or Australia, nor were they from well-known clubs.

Within days of Ferdinan joining Oxford, their follower count on Instagram grew from 83,000 to 226,000. Some of Brisbane’s previous posts received less than 10 replies. Struick’s announcement had 9,000.

This is the Indonesia effect. The country in south-east Asia has a population of more than 280million people and football is the No 1 sport. Cue adoration for national team players and fanaticism online and offline.

To illustrate the point, below are some stats compiled by The Athletic to compare Indonesia’s starting XI with the United States men’s national team’s starting XI — but we’re not looking at expected goals or progressive passing. We’re comparing Instagram followers.

Indonesia’s starting XI for their World Cup qualifier against Australia had a collective Instagram following of 26.9million. The 11 clubs they play for have a combined following of under 10m on the same app.

In comparison, USMNT’s last starting XI from their friendly against New Zealand had a combined following of only 1.4m.

That number could have been higher but Christian Pulisic, the AC Milan forward with 7.8m followers on Instagram, was on the bench.

What comparing the two starting XIs should highlight is the level of support for Indonesian players compared with, for example, a country of more than 335million people that will host the men’s World Cup in 2026.

The only players in the starting XI for Indonesia’s goalless draw with Australia who have fewer followers than the club they play for are Rizky Ridho, who plays centre-back for Indonesian Liga 1 side Persija Jakarta, and Justin Hubner, who is at Wolverhampton Wanderers in the Premier League.

Hubner, 21, joined Wolves’ youth ranks in 2020. He has yet to feature for the senior side and plays the majority of his games at academy level — but with the national team, he is treated like he plays week in and week out for Real Madrid, such is the fanfare he experiences online and in person.

“I can’t leave my hotel (in Indonesia) because there are people waiting for me, running to me. Everywhere I go it’s crazy,” Hubner tells The Athletic. “If I go into a shop and then walk out, there will be maybe 100 people waiting. I’m their idol, so they are waiting for me, for pictures and autographs.”

More on the world of social media and football…

Hubner was born in the Netherlands and played alongside Xavi Simons (an Instagram star as a teenager at Barcelona, he had one million followers before he was 14 and now plays for RB Leipzig) in Dutch youth national teams. With Indonesia once a Dutch colony, a growing number of players in the national team have dual citizenship.

“I had maybe 5,000 followers on Instagram and when the fans realised I had Indonesian blood it went to 30k and now I’m at 2.7million,” says Hubner. “In terms of social media, everything has just grown so fast. Everything from brand deals too. There’s so much coming to me now. It’s a dream.”

The day before speaking to The Athletic, his deal with deodorant firm Rexona was launched. “A lot of team-mates here at Wolves say, ‘Can I change my national team to Indonesia?’, as a joke.

“But the guys here support me and are happy for me. They also want followers because it’s nice to have, but it is not about followers, the important thing is that I’m playing for the national team and what comes with it is really nice.”

Hubner went on loan to Japanese side Cerezo Osaka last season and says there were always Indonesia fans there to watch him, but when he travelled back to England following the two World Cup qualifier games against Saudi Arabia and Australia, there was no welcome party like there would have been at Jakarta airport. He returned to his apartment alone and without the need for security.

“It’s a different world,” Hubner says about his quiet life in Wolverhampton. “When I come back to Europe it is like I am living my own life, no stress. In Indonesia, there is a crazy side. You have no privacy, wherever you go there’s always people recording you, it’s nice but it is also good to get back to your own space and privacy.

“When I landed in Indonesia, I tried to hide myself with a cap and a mask but they recognised me straight away. Even the security and police wanted pictures with me. There was 50 to 60 people who wanted a picture. My family are also quite famous now. I made an Instagram account for my mum and she has nearly 50,000 followers. Everyone recognises her. The first time she went to Indonesia, she was asking why people wanted pictures with her.”

When fans meet Hubner he says it is not uncommon for them to be overawed with emotion. Some have cried. His mother, Brigitte, has received direct messages from fans who dream of marrying her son. This star factor is something clubs are trying to tap into.

“Dallas have been noticing it,” goalkeeper Paes says. “There’s been a big boost in terms of engagement for the club. If I play for a club, I like to help them as much as possible because they help me a lot too. My main focus is to keep the balls out of the net for them, but help to build this club, build awareness.”

Oxford, Ferdinan’s new club, are co-owned by Erick Thohir, an Indonesian businessman who helped restore them to the second tier after a 25-year hiatus. Thohir was also appointed head of the Football Association of Indonesia last year and is behind the drive to improve the national team, youth teams and wider football across Indonesia.

“The exciting thing about Marselino is that he is the best young Indonesian talent,” says Thohir. “He’s 20, he’s been playing and training in Belgium.

“We need to be investing in young players at Oxford. He’s young but he has played more than 20 times for our national team, so the Oxford manager wants to give him a chance, and that’s the most important thing.

“If he brings more awareness to Oxford, it is an extra value.

“We want to see an opportunity for any players who can play,” he adds. “So let’s see if Marselino can survive in Oxford because we don’t give any red carpet or VIP treatment. He has to compete.”

(Top photos: Robertus Pudyanto, Mohamed Farag, Zhizhao Wu, Noushad Thekkayil, Getty Images; design: Meech Robinson)

By Rustin Dodd, Zack Meisel and Andy McCullough

When the Tampa Bay Buccaneers snapped a record 26-game losing streak in December 1977, head coach John McKay tried to look on the bright side.

“Three or four plane crashes and we’re in the playoffs,” he said.

It was hard to blame him. The year before, the Bucs had finished 0-14 in their inaugural season, stamping their place among the worst teams in the history of professional sports.

The list includes the winless, the hopeless, and the talentless. One owner traded all of his good players to his other team. This year, the list includes a new applicant: The 2024 Chicago White Sox.

This year, the South Siders set the modern MLB record for the most losses in a season, topping the 1962 New York Mets Friday night with loss No. 121 — and they’re not done yet. Here’s where the White Sox rank among a baker’s dozen of the worst teams ever.

So awful they were forgettable

13. 2011-12 Charlotte Bobcats, NBA, 7-59, .106

Before the season, the Bobcats’ owner sized up his team’s chances this way: “Who knows how good we can be? We’ve got some good pieces that can help us get to the playoffs. I’m not waiting until next year. I think we have a good quality basketball team this year.”

It was a rare airball from perhaps the greatest basketball player who ever lived. Michael Jordan won six NBA Finals MVP awards. His Bobcats won seven regular season games during the 2011-12 season. Jordan flirted with immortality as a player, and then as an owner he oversaw the perhaps most vincible NBA team ever assembled.

Sure, that season was shortened to 66 games because of a lockout, but the Bobcats weren’t exactly trending well toward the end. They dropped their final 23 games. Otherwise, 7-59 might have become 9-73 or 10-72 or, hell, 7-75.

Their seven wins were one-third the total of the next-worst team. Their 87.0 points per game are the lowest by any team in the last 20 years. They lost by double digits 38 times and by at least 20 points on 22 occasions. Their .106 winning percentage is the worst in NBA history. Their head coach, Paul Silas, reportedly shoved forward Tyrus Thomas “toward his locker” after a loss to the Boston Celtics because Thomas had been “fraternizing” with the opposition. — ZM

12. 2011 Tulsa Shock, WNBA, 3-31, .088

When the WNBA’s Detroit Shock relocated to Tulsa for the 2010 season, legendary former Arkansas coach Nolan Richardson took over as head coach. In 2011, the team put a new spin on “40 Minutes of Hell.”

Gutted by departures, the 2011 Shock began the season with a 1-10 record before Richardson resigned. It didn’t get better. Under new coach Theresa Richards, the team finished 3-31, setting a WNBA record for worst winning percentage (.088). The team finished last in points per game, second to last in points allowed, and set a record for consecutive losses (20) — later matched by the 2023 Indiana Fever. “What can I say?” Richards said. “I’m the one in the seat.”

The Shock lasted just four more seasons in Tulsa before moving to Dallas. — RD

Maybe relegation is a good idea

11. 2007-08 Derby County, English Premier League, 1-29-8, .026

In 2023-24, Sheffield United set a Premier League record by allowing 104 goals in 38 games. And yet in terms of sheer awfulness, they can’t touch the Derby County side from 2007-08, which won just one match and accumulated just 11 points, the worst since the league began in 1992.

Manager Billy Davies was out after just 14 matches. His replacement, Paul Jewell, did not experience a win. Neither did anyone during the club’s final 32 matches — a record for top-flight football.

Derby County also set the record for fewest goals (20) and most defeats (29). They were relegated after the season and have never played their way back to the Premier League. As The Athletic’s Duncan Alexander wrote earlier this year, “ … no side will ever go as low as 11 points again, but Derby at least have had the sense to never return.” — RD

There’s no earthly reason they should have been this bad

10. 1972-73 Philadelphia 76ers, NBA, 9-73, .110

In his memoir, Tom Van Arsdale, a 6-5 shooting guard who joined the Sixers in January 1973, compared the team to a “burnt, faded, broken-down used lemon with the sticker price so low it was almost offensive.”

The team set the NBA record for losses with 73.

Their head coach was Roy Rubin, a New Yorker who was hired from Long Island University to replace Jack Ramsay, and then lasted just 51 games, finishing with a 4-47 record. In a 2023 story for ESPN, center John Block described Rubin as “a nice guy, but he really, really had a hard time coaching.”

Block later moved to Florida and operated an IHOP restaurant.

Philadelphia had been in a general state of decline since losing Wilt Chamberlain after the 1967-68 season. But it had never been this woeful. The Sixers endured a 14-game losing streak that started in December, snapped the skid on Jan. 7, 1973, and then promptly lost another 20 games in a row.

The best player on the ‘72-73 Sixers was guard Fred Carter, who doubled as the best story. The upbeat Carter, who hung around Philly for four more seasons, was later credited with helping popularize the fist bump with his Sixers teammates. — RD

9. 2003 Detroit Tigers, MLB, 43-119, .265

This could have been the team the 2024 White Sox were chasing, if not for a miraculous recovery in the final week of the season. The Tigers started the season 1-17. By late September, they were 38-118 and on the verge of eclipsing those ’62 Mets as the most pitiful outfit to ever step foot on a modern big-league diamond.

It wasn’t as though this came out of left field. As team architect Dave Dombrowski recalled to The Athletic last year: “We didn’t expect to have a good season, by any means.” As the club reached triple digits in the loss column in late August, though, they started eyeing that Mets record and computing how they could steer clear of it.

With 20 games remaining, they knew they needed six more wins to avoid infamy. With six games remaining, they still needed five more wins. They surged to the finish line, though, and now, they’re merely a footnote in the annals of baseball ineptitude.

“It was almost like winning the World Series,” said outfielder Craig Monroe about that frantic finish to the season, which included Detroit’s biggest comeback win in 38 years. “Doesn’t that sound crazy as hell?”

Why, yes, it does. — ZM

Expansion? How about contraction instead?

8. 1992-93 Ottawa Senators, NHL, 10-70-4, .119

The headline writers at the Ottawa Citizen could not contain their glee when the Senators returned to town after a 56-year absence: “Maybe Rome was built in a day,” the paper declared after the Sens defeated the Montreal Canadiens in the first game of the season. “10,449 fans went wild, and it was magical,” a sub-hed read.

They were wrong about Rome — and they were wrong about the new hometown team.

Ottawa did not win again until its 23rd game. The rest of the season went about the same way. The team won just once — once! — on the road. And that happened in the 81st game. The club finished with 24 points, 34 points behind the Hartford Whalers in the Adams division. Not ideal. — AM

7. 1974-75 Washington Capitals, NHL, 8-67-5, .100

When the Washington Capitals and Kansas City Scouts joined the NHL for the 1974-75 season and proceeded to have two of the worst years in league history, a general opinion formed around the league: Expansion was a mistake.

The Scouts were awful. The Capitals were even worse, finishing a shocking 8-67-5, including an incredible 1-39 on the road. The Capitals allowed a record 446 goals. They lost four games by at least 10 goals. The reason was simple enough: The NHL had tipped the scales against the new franchises, allowing the league’s incumbent teams to protect all of their good players.

“It’s not fair,” Capitals GM Milt Schmidt told The New York Times in 1974. “We paid $6 million to join the league, and look how little the other teams have left for us.”

When the Capitals did win their one and only road game, they returned to the dressing room and paraded a trash can around the room like it was the Stanley Cup. — RD

6. 1976 Tampa Buccaneers, NFL, 0-14, .000

Head Coach John McKay and his Bucs didn’t have much, but they did have those distinctive uniforms. (Focus on Sport / Getty Images)

Hamstrung by inequitable expansion rules, the Buccaneers had a roster of aging veterans (many of whom would injure their hamstrings) and unproven young players. They set a new standard for professional incompetence.

The Bucs did not score until their third game and did not record a touchdown until their fourth. They did manage to place 17 players on the injured reserve, an unofficial record. In all the Bucs were outscored 412- to-125, including a 42-0 loss at Pittsburgh and a 34-0 loss at the Jets. And before the season opener, head coach John McKay famously got lost in the Astrodome tunnels.

The creamsicle uniforms were nice, but the team plane was not. In an NFL Films segment, future Hall of Famer Lee Roy Selmon — as a rookie, perhaps the team’s lone bright spot — relayed a story about how the Bucs’ old plane, which always seemed to break down, was leased from the owner of a chainsaw company, complete with a chainsaw logo on the side: “Right away,” he said, “I was a little worried.” — RD

5. 1962 New York Mets, MLB, 40-120, .250

“Can’t anybody here play this game?” Mets manager Casey Stengel famously asked.

The answer was no. (Well, Frank Thomas and Richie Ashburn were decent.)

The Mets finished 40-120, setting the modern era record for losses. Their exploits were legendary: Their pitchers posted a team ERA of 5.04. They committed 210 errors. Nearly 25 percent of their wins came during a 9-3 spurt in May. Nineteen players would never play another season in the majors. Perhaps no moment symbolized the 1962 Mets like the day Marv Throneberry missed first base against the Cubs while hitting a potential game-winning RBI triple with two outs. When the Cubs appealed to first and Throneberry was called out, erasing the runs, the umpire had a message for an upset Stengel. “Casey, I hate to tell you this,” he said, “but he also missed second.” — RD

The 0-16 Club

The 2017 Cleveland Browns found themselves looking up at pretty much every team ever. (Patrick Smith / Getty Images)

4. 2017 Cleveland Browns, NFL, 0-16, .000

Hue Jackson guaranteed the Browns would not repeat their 1-15 record from 2016. If that happened, he vowed, he would plunge into the choppy, chilly waters of Lake Erie.

And he was right! The Browns did not produce another 1-15 showing in 2017. No, they went winless.

They ranked last in the league in points per game and second-to-last in points allowed per game. All season, they started a raw second-round pick from Notre Dame, DeShone Kizer, who tossed twice as many interceptions as touchdown passes. Only one player, the bac”kup running back, recorded 400 or more receiving yards.

When the season ended, fans organized a parade to protest the franchise for its annual incompetence. They marched around the stadium in subzero temperatures, shouting: “What do we want? Watchable football! When do we want it? Now!” Some Browns fans sported No. 16 jerseys with the name “Owen” on the back. Some Lions fans made the trip to commiserate with the new members of the winless club.

Jackson finally waded into Lake Erie the following June. “It’s going to be a cleansing of our organization,” he declared. He was fired four months later, leaving Cleveland with a 3-31-1 record. — ZM

3. 2008 Detroit Lions, NFL, 0-16, .000

The question, in retrospect, is one of the funniest in the modern history of American sports press conferences. The Lions had just lost, 42-7, giving up more than 30 points for the 12th time in 15 games. The team’s defensive coordinator, Joe Barry, just so happened to be the son-in-law of head coach Rod Marinelli. As Marinelli spoke to the media, Detroit News columnist Rob Parker could not resist.

“On a light note,” Parker ventured, “do you wish your daughter would have married a better defensive coordinator?”

Enough time has passed that hopefully we can admit it: That’s a good zinger.

The Lions were the first NFL team to ever go winless in a 16-game season. The feat was matched nine years later by the Cleveland Browns. But the 2017 Browns were outscored by 176 points. The 2008 Lions? Try a point-differential of negative-249.

Marinelli, understandably, did not take it well. Parker dealt with plenty of blowback; he was suspended by the newspaper and eventually resigned. But he remains a fixture in the sports media landscape. Marinelli was never a head coach again. — AM

The Applicant

2. 2024 Chicago White Sox, MLB, record unknown

There’s an old adage, often attributed to Mark Twain, that says humor equals tragedy plus time.

There will come a time in the future when the 2024 White Sox will be remembered in a way that most baseball teams are not. Many of the teams on this list have not been assembled or competing for decades, but their exploits will never die.

Two players colliding as the opposing announcer declares the moment “full White Sox?” Andrew Benintendi likening the team to a “dead horse?” A 21-game losing streak that tied the AL record?

At some point, these will be colorful and funny details.

It just takes time.

The White Sox had a 4-40 stretch. They lost 27 of 28 at home. They became the first team since the 1916 A’s to fall 81 games under .500.

You can go on.

History will judge the 2024 White Sox. But they are not the worst team of all time. — RD

The Cleveland Spiders’ legacy lives on. (Quinn Harris / Getty Images)

The Worst Team of All Time

1. 1899 Cleveland Spiders, MLB, 20-134, .130

Frank and Stanley Robison owned both the Cleveland Spiders and St. Louis Perfectos, and believing that St. Louis was the better bet to make money going forward, they stripped the Cleveland roster of all its talent and stacked St. Louis instead. Before the season, they swapped Cy Young and other stars with players who did not eventually have distinguished awards named after them. And so the Spiders became the most futile baseball team of all time, a sad-sack bunch destined to fail before they ever took the field.

The Spiders endured a 24-game losing streak. They lost 40 of their last 41 games. They finished the season with a run differential of minus-723. They trailed first-place Brooklyn by 84 games in the final standings. During the summer-long funeral procession, the Cleveland Plain Dealer stopped referring to them as the Spiders and instead dubbed them the Cleveland Exiles or the Cleveland Forsakens.

Following a 4-2 Spiders win on Aug. 25 against the New York Giants, the Plain Dealer printed: “An eighth wonder has come into the world and the Colossus of Rhodes, the Pyramids, the Statue of Zeus and the rest of the seven wonders had better look to their laurels. Cleveland has won another game. How it happened is beyond explanation. … They put up such a sharp, fast game that the 200 people who had gone out to League Park to get a little fresh air and take a quiet siesta were soon aroused to something very close to enthusiasm.” The Spiders wouldn’t win again for three-and-a-half weeks.

Fans bailed on supporting the intentionally depleted roster, so the club wound up traveling for most of its games. They embarked on a 50-game trip in July and August, on which they went 6-44. Even the team’s uniforms stunk, according to the Plain Dealer, which wrote: “Now they are obliged to wear the castoff uniforms of the St. Louis Browns, all of which are plenteously adorned with patches.”

The Spiders were promptly booted from the National League and disbanded. Cleveland baseball was reborn in 1901 as a charter member of the American League with a franchise that still stands today as the Guardians. — ZM

(Illustration by Meech Robinson / The Athletic; Photos: Quinn Harris / Getty Images, Gregory Shamus / Getty Images, David T. Foster III / Charlotte Observer / MCT)