Sports History: Dynasties Of MLB and NFL

The history of sports is different from plain old history. There is not as much interpretation, it is all in the numbers.

To say that the San Francisco 49ers could have been the team of the '90s in the NFL is irrelevant since it was the Cowboys that won the most titles that decade.

In the 1970s, there was the Big Red Machine from Cincinnati that was the most popular championship team, but it was the Oakland Athletics who won three titles.

It is all in the numbers.

The Presidential election in 2000 is still a source of debate because of all of the shaningans in Florida. It is similar to a world title being decided by a bad call by an official, which we've also seen happen. Just ask the St. Louis Cardinals about the 1985 World Series against the Kansas City Royals.

Baseball was once the national pastime of this country. It had the longest, richest history.

Things changed for the grand old game in 1994 when there was no World Series due to a player's strike that could not be resolved. It appears that it might be the last strike of its kind for baseball, but the wounds have been long to heal.

What was seen as a cure in a great home run explosion has merely tainted the game further as a cloud of performance enhancing drugs, thought to be the reason for the homer explosion (and I'm not talking about an episode of the Simpsons where Homer was blown up).

Shockingly, with two titles in the first decade of the 20th century, it can be said that the first dynasty in baseball belonged to the Chicago Cubs.

Boston dominated from 1910 to 1919 as the Red Sox won four titles and the Braves won one.

Dynasties in baseball have been dominated by the team from the Bronx. The New York Yankees were the team from the '20s to the '50s where they won an amazing 18 titles.

The Yankees won two titles in the '60s as did the St. Louis Cardinals and the Los Angeles Dodgers.

The Pirates beat the Yankees in the 1960 World Series to earn a title, the Tigers won one in 1968 and the Amazing Mets won the title in 1969 where they beat the Baltimore Orioles who also won a title in the '60s.

In that parity driven decade, I would have to go with the Yankees as the team of the decade since they tied with two titles and lost the 1960 series in seven games.

Those damn Yankees.

The '70s team of the decade was the Oakland A's as they won three straight and beat the Reds for one of those titles. The Yankees also got a couple of more in that decade just to muck things up.

The '80s was similar to the '60s except there were no Yankee titles. The Dodgers won two more and were the only franchise with two titles that decade.

The Phillies, Orioles, Mets, Cardinals, Royals and Twins all won a title in the 1980s. The Cardinals were in the series three times in the '80s, but only won the one title so the Dodgers were the team of the '80s.

The Yankees were back to their old tricks in the '90s with three more titles. And so far this decade, only the Red Sox have won more than one title as they broke through "The Curse of the Bambino" in 2004 and won another in 2007.

Football has every bit of the rich history that baseball does.

The first football dynasty was a team from Canton, Ohio that won back-to-back NFL titles in 1922 and 1923.

For all of us long, suffering Cleveland fans, the Bulldogs won the title in 1924. The Bears and the Cardinals, both in Chicago, won titles in the '20s as well. The New York Giants posted 10 shutouts in 13 games to win the 1927 title.

The '30s were a time of growth and parity for football. The Packers, Giants and Bears all won titles. There was so much parity that even the Lions won a title in the '30s.

The teams of the '40s were the Bears, still led by George Halas and the Philadelphia Eagles. The Cleveland Rams also won another title.

Detroit and Cleveland were the top teams of the '50s. All of this was before the Super Bowl days of the NFL.

In the '60s the AFL had the Houston Oilers and Buffalo Bills win titles, while the Green Bay Packers were the team of the '60s in the NFL.

The '70s was the decade of the Steelers.

The '80s were dominated by the 49ers, the '90s saw the Cowboys reign as the team of the decade and this one has belonged to the Patriots.