The question is inspired by Deion Sanders, who played for the Niners when they won their last Super Bowl (I’ve been a Niners fan ever since) and was traded to the Cowboys the next season where he won another ring. If you’re ever feeling low, just remember that the Cowboys have never even made a conference final since then. Wonderful, just wonderful.
Anyway, I imagine there are several who are on two. Are there any on three? More?
Will Smith, the pitcher not the catcher, was a member of the 2021 Braves, 2022 Astros, and 2023 Rangers world championship teams. None of the three has won since.
It’s interesting that you can lose this record, not just by somebody else beating it, but by you losing your stats if a former team wins another championship.
No MLB player has won the Series with more than three different teams, so baseball is out. I don’t really follow the other sports, so I couldn’t hazard a guess about them.
*Lonnie Smith probably came the closest: Phillies in ‘80, Cardinals in ‘82, Royals in ‘85, and the ‘91 series (when he was playing with Atlanta) came out the wrong way for the Braves despite being a seven-game series with games 6 and 7 being extra inning losses.
I realized that any athlete with any championionship is in the minority and a multiple championship athlete is in even more rarefied company. Winning with two or more teams? Almost unheard of.
Really it says more about the Niners and (especially) the Cowboys than it says about Deion. Although, hm, Colorado’s hasn’t be too hot under his regime, either.
I don’t think it’s that unheard of. I can, off the top of my head, think of four other NFL players who did it, specifically with the Cowboys and another team:
Mike Ditka (1963 Bears, 1971 Cowboys)
Herb Adderley (1961, '62, '65, '66, '67 Packers, 1971 Cowboys)
Jack Marshall was a hockey player who won 6 Stanley Cups in the early 1900s:
1901 - Winnipeg Victorias
1902, 1903 - Montreal AAA
1907, 1910 - Montreal Wanderers
1914 - Toronto Blueshirts
I believe those are the last Stanley Cups for each of those teams.
This is a bit of a cheat, since the Stanley Cup was a much different competition back then, and the Victorias did go on to win a different trophy (Allen Cup) later on.
Given that, AFAICT, the Wanderers are the only one of those teams which ever played in the NHL (for which the Stanley Cup became the championship trophy), and all of those teams have been defunct for 90+ years, that does seem likely.
It also looks like Montreal AAA (the last of the four to survive) also won the Allan Cup, in 1930.
Is the query limited to the four major North American Pro leagues?
It could include NCAA National Championships particularly in Football and Basketball but I guess Baseball and Hockey would count too, although a bit more obscure.
Until relatively recently, it was uncommon for college athletes to change schools, and those who did typically started out at a smaller or junior college school before transferring to a larger school.
It was especially uncommon for an athlete to transfer from one Division I school to another, particularly because the NCAA generally required such transfers to sit out a season before playing for their new school (though waivers were sometimes granted). Recent rule changes, which eliminated the “sit out a year” penalty, as well as frequently granting extra seasons of eligibility (particularly for football) and the establishment of the “transfer portal” have effectively made top-end college athletes free agents after each season.
That said, I’m sure that there are some examples of an athlete who won championships for multiple schools, but between relatively short collegiate careers, and not much movement of athletes from one school to another until recent years, it’s likely not as common as it is in professional sports.
I was thinking a player like Deion Sanders could have played on Florida State last National Championship winner in football (or baseball) which would add to his total.