Last night the Cleveland Indians’ American League record 22-game winning streak ended when the Kansas City Royals came from behind to defeat the Tribe, 4-3.  The streak is the second longest winning streak in major league baseball history and is the longest winning streak in more than 100 years.  Here in Northern Ohio, we have hosted a World Series and a 22-game winning streak within a year, which gives us an excellent perspective on the merits of both.  For the rest of you, here are ten reasons why a 22-game winning streak is better than a World Series.

1. The Streak came out of nowhere. Teams that make it to the World Series have almost always played well all season, and in nearly all cases were expected to contend for playoff spots before the season even began.  Nobody expects a 22-game winning streak, even when a team has already won twenty-one in a row.
2. Every game is an elimination game. You can lose three games in the World Series and still win the thing. (Just ask the Cubs.) But there is no margin for error if you’re trying to win every game.
3. Twenty-two is more than twelve. To win the World Series, a baseball team needs to win 12 playoff games if they entered the postseason as a wild card team, or eleven games if they have won their division.  To win 22 games in a row you have to win 22 games.
4. Regular season prices and promotions. A winning streak takes everyone by surprise, including team management. There is no time to raise ticket prices or cancel scheduled promotions. Fireworks, dollar dogs, bobbleheads, and free shirts are still provided. Clearly, this is not the case during the World Series.
5. No rich out-of-towners at the games. During a World Series the ballpark is littered with thousands and thousands of rich out-of-towners who have no interest in the participating teams or in baseball in general. The World Series is an “event,” and the out-of-towners’ purpose in attending is to tell their clients or friends that they were at the World Series. During the streak’s home games, virtually everyone in the ballpark was fervently hoping to see the Indians win. The atmosphere during the games was electric and when they did win, the response was an overwhelming mixture of relief and elation.
6. No obnoxious fans of the visiting team at the games. Unless you are playing the Red Sox or the Yankees, regular season games don’t attract significant numbers of fans of the visiting team. In the World Series, they show up by the planeload. Unlike rich out-of-towners, there is nothing wrong with fans of the visiting team.  At least they know who is playing. But in large numbers they dilute the atmosphere and diminish the shared experience of the home crowd.
7. No attention-seekers at the games. No protestors, counter-protestors, anarchists, neo-Nazis, or Social Justice Warriors show up during a winning streak. No need for armed helicopters hovering overhead, packs of bomb-sniffing dogs, strip searches, or other enhanced security measures. If only that were true during a World Series.
8. Everybody understands a winning streak. You don’t have to understand the infield fly rule or be able to calculate a pitcher’s earned run average to fully appreciate a 22-game winning streak. Doing any positive thing twenty-two times in a row is pretty impressive.
9. There is a World Series winner every year. There is a 22-game winning streak every century.  Even the Indians have won the World Series twice since the last time a team won 22 straight games.
10. No Cubs fans at the games. Similar to Item #6, but clearly bears repeating.

One final note: I live in Cleveland, so I wouldn’t know anything at all about actually winning a World Series.  If by some cosmic miracle that should ever happen here, we might have to reconsider the comparison.

September 16, 2017