The first World Series between the American and National League champions was played in 1903 and the most recent in 2012.  The era of World Series play thus covers a total of 110 baseball seasons from 1903 through 2012, although two seasons, 1904 and 1994, did not actually include a World Series.

One way to evaluate a franchise’s success over that long historical period would be to count up its total World Series championships — the Yankees with 27, the Cardinals with 11 and so on down the line.  But  the vividness of historical memory, like that of individual human memory, fades to some extent over time.  It somehow doesn’t seem accurate to say that we think today, from our contemporary perspective, of the Cubs, Indians and Phillies franchises having had equal championship success because they have each won two World Series.  That the Cubs’ championships are both over 100 years old while the Phillies’ World Series victories are more recent, colors our view of these team’s respective World Series success in a way that simply saying they’ve each won two world championships fails to reflect.   

What if we sought to account for this difference by giving each World Series Championship an historical memory score, based on how recently or how long ago it took place?  Taking a first shot at this approach, I’ve tried to keep to a relatively simple formula.  The 1903 World  Series championship, won by the Red Sox franchise in 1903 (before the Red Sox nickname was adopted) gets Boston just one point of Championship Memory Score, having taken place so long, long ago.  A world champion in 1904, had there been one, would have received two points; the world champ for 1905 (the Giants) gets three points, etc. all the way up to the Giants’ win in 2012 that gets them 110 Championship Memory Score points.   The 2013 championship will be worth 111 points.  The table below shows the total current Championship Memory Score points, accumulated using this method, for each of the 30 current franchises.   The table also shows the raw number of World Series championships each franchise has won so you can compare the franchise rankings that result from the raw totals to the results using this Championship Memory Score method.

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