King Kaufman's Sports Daily

The Dodgers winning 17 out of 18 is a 100-year event for a team. Would you have guessed that? Plus: A good (bathroom) read.

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Aug. 16, 2006 | During the telecast of the Los Angeles Dodgers' 4-0 win over the Florida Marlins Tuesday night, Dodgers announcer Vin Scully was hawking a partial season-ticket package that he said represents fans' last chance to be guaranteed a chance to buy postseason tickets.

"We never would have been talking about that on July 28," he said. "The Dodgers were in last place, seven games out."

They'd also lost eight straight and 13 out of 14. In less than three weeks since then, all they've done -- as Scully would say -- is win 17 out of 18, including the last six in a row, and now they lead the National League West by three and a half games over the Arizona Diamondbacks and San Diego Padres.

It's the best run for the franchise since 1899, and isn't that amazing? How can that be?

Since 1900, the Dodgers, also known at times as the Superbas and the Robins, have won 19 pennants and six World Series, plus four more division titles and a wild card. They've played .600 ball in 17 different seasons. And in, according to Baseball-Reference.com and my calculator, 16,732 games through Tuesday, they've never had a stretch of winning 17 out of 18.

Over a century and change, don't you just win 17 out of 18 by accident?

The posters at Baseball Primer helped me with the math and assured me that one streak of 17-for-18 is about what you'd expect to happen since 1900, assuming the franchise is roughly a .500 team over that stretch. The Superbas/Robins/Dodgers/Bums have played .511 ball since 1900.

I bet you could win some bar bets on this.

Ask your pal -- after first ascertaining that he or she doesn't read this column, which shouldn't be a problem -- how many times the Dodgers have won 17 out of 18 games since 1900. You might throw in a reminder that in the last two months, the Minnesota Twins, a third-place team that's two games from the nearest playoff spot, have put together separate streaks of 19-1 and 12-1.

Next page: All trends continue, always. Right? Plus: A team-by-team baseball encyclopedia