Non championship sports part 2

Though the Chicago Cubs are doing better now that their overpriced corner outfielders are no longer active, they are all but mathematically eliminated from the playoffs at this time. Therefore, unless the Cubs either overcome an 8 1/2 game division deficit with 9 games to play or overcome 4 other teams to win the wild card berth, this chart will reflect their failure:



One hundred times in a row a team other than the Cubs will win the title. (Note: There was no title awarded in 1994 and even though the Cubs were 16 games out of a playoff spot when the 1994 season was ended by a strike in early August, that year does not count)

Through 1961, the odds of the Cubs winning a World Series was the same as four tossed coins landing on heads. With more teams added since then and with creating three divisions and including a wild card (which for all the NL Central teams increases the odds), the mathematical odds of winning the NL pennant is currently equal to drawing a non suicide king from a full deck of playing cards and of the World Series that plus a coin flip.

To determine the odds of a team not winning a title for 100 seasons I had to multiply (15/16) 53 times, (19/20) 7 times, etc. That comes out to 199-1.

For not winning the NL pennant since 1945, I did the similar thing of multiplying (7/8) 16 times, (9/10) 7 times, etc. Those odds came out to 392-1.