I nominate:
BASEBALL
The 1899 Cleveland Spiders (NL)– Won 20, lost 134 (!!); so bad they played most of their schedule on the road. Did not survive until the next season.
The 1889 Louisville Cyclones (AA)– Won 27, lost 111; set record of 22 losses ion a row not broken until 1961. Won pennant following year; series ended in a tie. Two years later league disbanded.
The 1916 Philadelphia A’s– Won 36, lost 117. Most of Connie Mack’s stars had deserted him for the Federal League–now disbanded. Team lost money in 1914 despite winning pennant. Mack didn’t get another flag until 1929.
The 1962 New York Mets– Won 40, lost 120, still 20th-Century record. Gave up the first run in the franchise’s history on a balk.
FOOTBALL
**Tampa Bay Buccaneers, first few seasons–**Didn’t win a game until their second or third season–I forget which.
Oakland Raiders, AFL, 1962– Played 12 games, lost all 12!
Los Angeles Rams, NFL, 1962– Won 1, lost 12, tied 1.
HOCKEY
L. A. Blades, American Hockey Association– If they ever won a game I’d sure like to know about it.
I would argue that the worst baseball team of all time is in fact the 2003 Detroit Tigers, who were a little better than the 1962 Mets in W-L record (43-119, instead of 40-120) and a lot better than some of the early 20th/late 19th century examples, but were worse because:
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The 1962 Mets were an expansion team and so at least they have an excuse,
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The difference between good and bad teams - the standard deviation, as it were - has generally gone down over time and is dramatically less than it was back in the days of the Cleveland Spiders or the bad Philadelphia A’s teams, and
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The Spiders are an unfair comparison because that team was deliberately disassembled by its owner in order to staff another team. They were not a proper major league franchise in the sense the 2003 Tigers were. In fact, they didn’t even play a proper schedule; they played only 34 games at home, 120 on the road.
In basketball, I think it’s hard to top the 72-73 Sixers, who went 9-73. I would not have thought such ineptitude possible. Many claim the 1992-1993 Mavericks were even worse, but they won 11 games and I think the 76ers deserve special credit for only have a single digit win number.
In hockey, the 1974-1975 Washington Capitals won only eight games, and tied five. I’m kind of amazed the franchise survived.
“Krusty, you bet everything on the Washington Generals?”
“They were due!”
The '62 Mets actually had a pretty good offense, but their pitching and defense were abysmal.
The 1996 New York Jets were pretty dismal – 1-15. This was an established team that had worked to get a quarterback who led his team to the Superbowl the previous year. 27th in points scored, 29th in points allowed.
For sustained suckitude, from 1933 through 1945, the Philadelphia Phillies never won more than 64 games in a season. They finished last eight times and seventh (out of eight) five. It was 1949 before they finally hit .500. And a .506 mark in 1932 is the only thing that kept their streak of under-.500 seasons from going back 31 years.
The Philadelphia Athletics rivaled the Phillies: under .500 from 1934-1946, with nine last-place finishes in that stretch. The A’s also finished 8th seven times in a row from 1915-21. The main advantage they had over the Phillies was one of the greatest teams of all time in 1929-31.
The St. Louis Browns and Washington Senators (version 1.0) also had some bad teams, but not down to the level of those in Philadelphia.
Detroit Lions: Only one playoff victory since 1957. (1991)
Chicago / St. Louis / Phoenix / Arizona Cardinals: Longest championship drought. (1947 to present). All-time post-season record is 2-5.
It’s amazing how things can change so quickly with the right management, huh? Interestingly, it looks like Bonderman, Robertson and Ledezma were on that team.
Hey Georgie boy, that’s why you keep your young pitchers and develop them internally. And it’s a lot cheaper than repeatedly spending $15 - $20 million on 40-year old washed up pitchers.
I would nominate the Phillies for lifetime achievement award. They have lost more games than any other pro-team in history.
Next Year they will top 10,000 losses. By my Calculations they have 9,956 so far.
They have been playing since 1884.
They have had only 8 1st place finishes: 1993, 1983, 1980, 1978, 1977, 1976, 1950, 1915 and only 1 World Series victory: 1980
Jim
Reading this thread about all these bad teams makes me feel (a little) better about being a Kansas City Royals fan.
Kansas City: home of three consecutive years of 100+ loss seasons.
Last World Series Championship: 1985
Last post season appearance: 1985
The Zimbabwe Cricket Team (current). Should not be playing international cricket at any level.
The 1930 Phillies. Excellent offense; defense hampered by old Baker Bowl. (I wonder how they did on the road.) Lee Allen wrote that “The 1930 Phillies’ pitching staff yielded a total of 1199 runs, which is likely to outlast the redwood trees of California or the sun.” 
*The 1935 Boston Braves. Won 38, lost 115. Babe Ruth played during first six weeks; hit .181. (He later commented, “I don’t think the fans would have come out to see St. Peter himself hit .181.”) Bill McKechnie, the manager, had been doing an excellent job with this pathetic team, but wth Ruth around, Bill couldn’t enforce discipline. The Braves even lost to a team of pick-ups from a shoe manufacturer!
As far as modern baseball teams, it’s tough to beat the Pirates. Though it’s of little comfort being a Brewer’s fan. Sure, we had the opportunity to lose the '82 Series, so the drought of success isn’t as bad as some. But seriously, when a .500 season gets the True Blue Brew Crew fired up, it says something about the franchise.
Ah well, if the Tigers can do it…
For hockey, I nominate the Ottawa Senators from 1992-1996. They went 0.171(51-224-23) in four seasons. Take away the games they played with Jacques Martin as head coach, and they were 0.157 (41-200-19). Sure, they were an expansion team, but they were an inept expansion team. In their first two seasons, no goaltender broke the 4.00 GAA mark, and it took until 1996 for them to have a goaltender with a GAA under 3.00. Their first round draft picks, all top 3 picks, were Alexei Yashin(2nd overall), Alexandre Daigle(1st overall), Radek Bonk(3rd overall) and Brian Berard(1st overall).
The NFL’s 1952 Dallas Texans deserve a mention. They went 1-11 and wound up having to play all their games on the road, including a “home” game in Akron, Ohio.
I only opened this thread to ensure the Detroit Lions were adequately represented. Few teams in any sport have a sustained culture of mediocrity as long as the Lions. Almost 50 years with only one playoff win. The only NFL team to go three complete seasons (2001-2003) without a victory on the road. Under four years of leadership from president and CEO Matt Millen the team had a .250 record, by far the worst in the league over the given time period. For this performance, Millen was rewarded with a 5-year contract extension last year. From this I can only conclude that he has photos of team ownership doing something highly illegal, or perhaps the owners are running some sort of Producers-esque scam. They’re currently off to a blistering 0-5 start and can quite possibly be mathematically eliminated from the postseason by week 9.
NFL: 1976 Tampa Bay Buccaneers. One of these NFL films guys said recently they went back to see the films from this team to see if they were as bad as their reputation. They were worse.
NBA Gotta go with those 72-73 76ers.
Baseball I would go with the 1965 Mets. The 1962 team lost more games but they at least had a few decent veteran hitters: Frank Thomas, Richie Ashburn, a few old guys were decent in limited roles like Gil Hodges and Gene Woodling. By 1965 those players were gone and the young players hdn’t come up yet. The best young player, Ron Hunt, was injured most of the year.
NCAA Columbia football team was bad in the 1980s.
NHL all time award to New York Rangers. Only one championship for a team in the last 65 years that consistently spends the most on salaries.
The Dallas Cowboys went 0-11-1 in their first year (1960).
Also, for College Football, Prairie View A&M (TX) lost 80 straight games in the 1990s, a record.
Columbia & Prairie View had the excuse being “small-time” college football teams (I-AA). Northwestern had a 34 game losing streak from 1979 to 1982, losing by an average of 40 point a game during the run.
Temple is surely the worst major college program today. They have been awful for years (so bad the Big East kicked them out of the conference) and are currently more than halfway to Northwestern’s mark (18 games). I wouldn’t be surprised if Temple breaks the Wildcat’s record 2 years from now. They even lost to who’s probably the 2nd worst team in the country, Buffalo, 9-3 at the start of the season.
Not only do the Lions have a sordid history but the future looks dismal. They are on a special kind of roll.Year after year. it sucks and is disappointing.
Of course, the Tigers spent a pile of money on a 40-something pitcher, too.
And even though the Yankees HAVEN’T won it all these past 6 years, they’ve been in a position to do it every year. If George took the Tigers’ approach, he’d suffer through 8 or 10 pitiful seasons, in hope of getting a shot at the title with young, home-grown players.
If you were George, is that REALLY the approach you’d take?