MLB postseason: Four biggest U.S. cities reach final four for first time ever
What’s left of Major League Baseball’s postseason is decidedly a major-market affair. For the first time ever, the four most-populated U.S. cities — New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago and Houston — are represented in the American League and National League Championship Series.
The Chicago Cubs beat the Washington Nationals on Thursday night to bring baseball to its final four teams and give the 2017 postseason a bit of history. The Cubs will play the Los Angeles Dodgers for a spot in the World Series (beginning Saturday) while the New York Yankees play the Houston Astros in the ALCS (starting Friday).
Credit to Paul Swydan of The Hardball Times for bringing this fun factoid to our attention. As he says, it’s based on the current most-populated cities in the U.S. and that list has changed over the years, but the point looks to stand up:
Have to think MLB would be pretty excited about that. Caveat – that's based on just the current 4 most populated cities. It's possible that the ranks were different in the past, but I'm guessing it's still the first.
— Paul Swydan (@Swydan) October 13, 2017
for instance, the only other times NY and LA have both been in the LCS, we had KC (77 & 78), Montreal (81), Boston (88). We had CHI/LA/HOU once, but also STL (05). 09 is a poss. LAD, LAA, NYY, PHI.
— Paul Swydan (@Swydan) October 13, 2017
If you’re wondering about the population side of this, according to the 2016 Census figures, that looks like this:
1. New York City: 8,537,673
2. Los Angeles: 3,976,322
3. Chicago: 2,704,958
4. Houston: 2,303,482
And much like the baseball postseason field, where the Arizona Diamondbacks got swept by the Dodgers, Phoenix is No. 5 on the population list at 1,615,017.
And sorry, Cleveland — population: 385,809; No. 51 — maybe next year.
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Mike Oz is the editor of Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at mikeozstew@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @MikeOz
