But the Cubs hardly have a track record synonymous with losing quite like the Philadelphia Phillies and Tampa Bay Rays, this year’s World Series participants who may be baseball’s real Lovable Losers. While the Cubs missed a golden opportunity to win their first Fall Classic in 100 years, the Phillies and Rays have a history of losing that runs so deep that it makes the Cubs’ ineptitude through the years seem mild by comparison.

The Phillies have won just one World Series in their 126-year history—in 1980. They are the only major league franchise to lose more than 10,000 games over their lifetime. Over a 31-year stretch from 1918-48, the Phillies had a winning record once (two games over .500 in 1932). They even sandwiched their last World Series appearance in 1993 between six straight losing seasons leading up to it and seven more right after.

Tampa Bay’s futility began with its entry into the American League East in 1998 and continued through the next 10 seasons. The Rays finished last nine times in their first decade of existence, and were a mere three games out of the cellar in their only tangible sign of on-field improvement. In each of the last two years, Tampa Bay has been awarded the No. 1 pick in the June draft—the only team ever to earn such selections in consecutive years. No other franchise, expansion or otherwise, has been so inept in its first 10 years of existence.

So with all due apologies to the Cubs and their legion of fans, this year’s World Series, which opens Wednesday in St. Petersburg, is the ultimate match-up between the two biggest losers that our game has known.

But a Rays-Phillies Series could turn into a classic, if history is any indication. The 1991 World Series matched the Atlanta Braves and Minnesota Twins, two teams that had finished last in their respective divisions a year earlier. And yet the Braves-Twins World Series was one of the best, most exciting ever, with the Twins winning in extra innings in the seventh and deciding game.

The Rays also not only went from worst to first this season, but their 192-percentage point improvement from 2007 to 2008 ranks as the second greatest single-season swing ever for a team in the World Series. Only the 1946 Boston Red Sox, who went from 71 wins the previous year to 104 a year later as several of their star players returned from World War II and were restored to the lineup, showed a greater one-year improvement than Tamp Bay.

The accompanying Top 10 chart highlights the World Series participants that have recorded the greatest one-year improvement. The year the team appeared in the Series is noted (along with its record), as well as the team’s record a year earlier and the percentage improvement overall.

Of note, the 1919 Chicago White Sox of Black Sox Scandal fame made the list. But the 1969 Miracle Mets didn’t crack the top 10 as their sudden rise to World Series champions represented only the 11th greatest one-season turnaround.