Once every four years, I have a little fun crossing the baseball and politics streams by writing a post noting that the Hated Yankees have prospered far better in the World Series under Democratic than Republican presidents – in fact, they haven’t won a World Series with a Republican in the White House since 1958. Counting since 1921 (their first pennant), the Yankees are 20-3 in the World Series in 42 postseasons of Democratic Administrations, but just 7-10 in the World Series in 48 years of Republican Administrations. On the whole, the Yankees under Democratic presidents have won the World Series (20 times) more often than they’ve missed the postseason (14 times), compared to 7 championships and 26 Octobers at home during Republican presidencies. They’ve gone 0 for the last five GOP Administrations while failing to bring home a championship on the watch of only one Democratic president, Lyndon Johnson.
Here’s a chart – I classified the postseasons by who was President in October (Nixon resigned in August, Harding and FDR died in the spring, JFK was killed in November) and left out 1994, when Buck Showalter’s Yankees had the best record in the American League when the strike hit, and 2012, since the postseason’s just started:
| POTUS | P | Years | WS W | WS L | LCS W | LCS L | LDS W | LDS L | Post | No Post |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Harding | R | 2 | 0 | 2 | – | – | – | – | 2 | 0 |
| Coolidge | R | 6 | 3 | 1 | – | – | – | – | 4 | 2 |
| Hoover | R | 4 | 1 | 0 | – | – | – | – | 1 | 3 |
| FDR | D | 12 | 6 | 1 | – | – | – | – | 7 | 5 |
| Truman | D | 8 | 5 | 0 | – | – | – | – | 5 | 3 |
| Eisenhower | R | 8 | 3 | 3 | – | – | – | – | 6 | 2 |
| Kennedy | D | 3 | 2 | 1 | – | – | – | – | 3 | 0 |
| Johnson | D | 5 | 0 | 1 | – | – | – | – | 1 | 4 |
| Nixon | R | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | – | – | 0 | 5 |
| Ford | R | 3 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | – | – | 1 | 2 |
| Carter | D | 4 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 1 | – | – | 3 | 1 |
| Reagan | R | 8 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | – | – | 1 | 7 |
| HW Bush | R | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | – | – | 0 | 4 |
| Clinton* | D | 7 | 4 | 0 | 4 | 0 | 4 | 2 | 6 | 1 |
| W Bush | R | 8 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 4 | 7 | 1 |
| Obama** | D | 3 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 0 |
| ALL | R | 48 | 7 | 10 | 4 | 1 | 3 | 4 | 22 | 26 |
| ALL | D | 42 | 20 | 3 | 7 | 2 | 6 | 3 | 28 | 14 |
The Mets, sadly, have not even appeared in enough postseasons to be worth doing a similar analysis- their total is a World Championship (1969) and a World Series loss (1973) under Nixon, a World Championship (1986) and an LCS loss (1988) under Reagan, a Division Series loss (1999) and a World Series loss (2000) under Clinton, and an LCS loss (2006) under George W. Bush. But if you compare regular season records:
| POTUS | P | W% |
|---|---|---|
| Kennedy | D | 0.283 |
| Johnson | D | 0.375 |
| Nixon | R | 0.525 |
| Ford | R | 0.508 |
| Carter | D | 0.401 |
| Reagan | R | 0.536 |
| HW Bush | R | 0.505 |
| Clinton | D | 0.505 |
| W Bush | R | 0.503 |
| Obama | D | 0.463 |
| ALL | R | 0.517 |
| ALL | D | 0.431 |
A pretty clear inverse of the Yankees pattern, although much like the GOP, while falling short of the big prize the Mets had a good second half of the Clinton years under Bobby Valentine (the Newt Gingrich of baseball managers), and like the GOP the Mets had terrible months in October 2006 and September 2008.
I’ve changed my mind. Obama for reelection!
I’ve changed my mind. Obama for reelection!