THE MAG.COM PRESENTS: ALL WORLD POWER RANKINGS

by Ted Bauer

WORST SPORTS FRANCHISE OF THE PAST 10 YEARS? THE PITTSBURGH PIRATES ARE RATED "AAAARGH"

There has been some ridiculous sporting ineptitude recently. The Detroit Lions have two games left—Saints and Packers—and could legitimately finish 0—16. Ugh. The Oklahoma City Thunder, with golden boy Kevin Durant, are 2—23 right now. Last season in MLB, the Seattle Mariners and Washington Nationals both lost more than 100 games. We decided to rank the worst sports franchises, but it's hard to do that "all-time," because life ebbs and flows. (Poetic.) We're locking this into a finite time period: since 1998, or a decade. Can't judge a team on 2-3 years, right? Here we go.

TOP 5
RANK (YESTERDAY)		WHAT	WHY
	1 (4)	THE PITTSBURGH PIRATES	This seems right. The last winning season that Pittsburgh had was 1992. That's 16 years, which is tied with the '33 to '48 Phillies for a futility record in the major sports.
	2 (6)	THE KANSAS CITY ROYALS	The Royals haven't appeared in the playoffs since they won the '85 World Series. Since '98, their best finish was 83—79 in 2003.
	3 (7)	CHICAGO BLACKHAWKS	Sure, they're getting better. They've made the playoffs once since 1997-1998, losing 4-1 to the Blues in the 2001-2002 first round. Ya probably think our choice at No. 4 should be higher, but bear with us.
	4 (9)	DETROIT LIONS	Since '98, they've been to the playoffs once too, losing to the Redskins in a wild-card game. They did go 9—7 in 2000 and that 7—9 team in 2007 seemed to offer some hope, didn't it? Also, with Matt Millen gone, this has to gradually get better through the Draft, right?
	5 (11)	VANCOUVER/MEMPHIS GRIZZLIES	They've had three winning seasons in the past 10 years, and in all three of those seasons, they got swept in the first round of the playoffs.

HONORABLE MENTION
RANK (YESTERDAY)		WHAT	WHY
	19 (180)	TEXAS RANGERS	Cue the peanut gallery: "Is this because of Bush's approval rating?" Naw. The Rangers have made the playoffs twice since '98, losing to the Yankees both times (sweeps), and they did go 89—73 in 2004. Still, they never seem to have any pitching, and the A-Rod idea was a pretty big bust.
	138 (1,651)	LOS ANGELES CLIPPERS	This should probably be higher, but they did school the Nuggets in the first round of the '05-'06 playoffs, then go seven games with the Suns and finish only two games under .500 the next season. We're pretty disappointed with the Baron Davis era so far, though.

RISING AND FALLING
MOVEMENT		WHAT
		MINNESOTA TIMBERWOLVES (Take away 2004, and whatcha got?)
		ARIZONA CARDINALS (Have been awful, but they seem to be on the upswing, no?)

For more All-World Power Rankings, CLICK HERE

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