June 23, 1889: Baseball's Longest Losing Streak

June 23, 1889: The Louisville Colonels beat the St. Louis Browns, 7-3 at the original Eclipse Park in Louisville, Kentucky. This ends the longest losing streak in the history of what would come to be called Major League Baseball: 26 games.

The Colonels were a founding franchise of the American Association in 1882, and had winning seasons in their 1st 3 years. They fell below .500 in 1885, and got back above .500 in 1887. So far, nothing dramatic, in either direction.

But in the middle of the 1888 season, their managing partner, W.L. Lyons, resigned, and was replaced by team secretary Mordecai Davidson, and named himself the team's manager. This was a disaster, and they fell to 48-87.

Things got worse in 1889. Davidson went through 4 managers. They lost their 1st 6 games of the season, and went through a 1-9 stretch, but ended the day on May 21 with a 3-game winning streak. They were 8-20, and things looked like they had been turned around.

They weren't. On May 22, the Baltimore Orioles beat them, 11-2. This began a losing streak of 26 games. It wasn't all their fault: There were 4 games against the Cincinnati Reds that had to be moved to Cincinnati, due to Eclipse Park's unavailability. There were 3 postponements due to rain. And 7 of the games, including the last 2, were lost by only 1 run; 4 others were lost by 2 runs. That's 11 games: If the Colonels had simply gone 1 game over .500 in those, they would have been 6-20 over that stretch. Still bad, but not historically bad.

By June, the players were in open revolt over Davidson's handling of the club, and several of them refused to play outright on June 14, in a game that ended up being postponed by rain, anyway. A special meeting of the AA board was called, and Davidson was issued an ultimatum to strengthen the club or be forced out. In early July, Davidson surrendered control of the Colonels to the league. 

The team finished the season in last place, with a record of 27–111, making them the 1st major league team ever to lose 100 games in a season. Their "winning" percentage of .195 is lower than that of such legendary 20th Century losers as the 1916 Philadelphia Athletics (36-117, .235), the 1935 Boston Braves (38-115, .248), and the 1962 New York Mets (40-120, .250).

In 1890 the team, which had been purchased by Barney Dreyfuss, bounced back with a vengeance. The Colonels went 88-44, and won the 1890 Pennant in the AA. Not for another 101 years would a team go from last place in its league to a Pennant in the next season. They met the Brooklyn Bridegrooms, who had joined the National League from the AA that season, in a postseason series. Each team won 3 games, and there was a tie, and a tiebreaker could never be arranged, making Brooklyn and Louisville Co-World Champions.

The Colonels fell apart again in 1891, but were, along with the Reds, Orioles and Browns, 1 of the 4 AA teams that was granted entry into the NL. They couldn't compete in that League, even with the 1897 arrival of shortstop Honus Wagner.

After the 1899 season, along with the Orioles, the Washington Senators and the Cleveland Spiders -- who lost 24 straight games and had a 1-40 stretch, on their way to the worst record in baseball history, 20-134 -- the Colonels were contracted out of the NL. But Dreyfuss bought the NL's Pittsburgh Pirates, and took the Colonels' best players, including Wagner, with him, and won the Pennant in 1901, '02, '03 and '09.

The longest MLB losing streak of the 20th Century was 23, by the 1961 Philadelphia Phillies. The 1988 Baltimore Orioles began the season 0-21, nearly going 0-for-April. That's the longest losing streak in American League history, and the longest to start an MLB season. The longest in the 21st Century, so far, is 19, by both the 2005 Kansas City Royals and the 2021 Orioles.

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June 23, 1889 was a Sunday. At the time, some States didn't allow professional sports on Sundays, and the National League respected this by not scheduling any games on Sundays. But the American Association did. Along with Colonels vs. Browns -- the team now known as the St. Louis Cardinals -- they scheduled these:

* The Brooklyn Bridegrooms, the team that became the Dodgers, beat the Columbus Solons, 8-2 at the original Washington Park in Brooklyn.

* The Baltimore Orioles beat the Philadelphia Athletics, 8-0 at the Jefferson Street Grounds in Philadelphia. Although both names would later be used by AL teams, neither of these particular teams would survive to the 20th Century.

* And the Cincinnati Reds beat the Kansas City Cowboys, 15-7 at American Park in Cincinnati.