Most Cursed Franchises in Sports Today

Some teams have all the luck in the world. How else do you explain the Yankees and their 27 championships, the Celtics with their 17 world titles, or the Montreal Canadiens with their 24 Stanley Cups? Certainly skill and talent have something to say for those numbers, but teams still need to have luck break in the right direction for them in order for everything to fall into place.

But there is always the other side of the pendulum, occupied by the teams where luck has either passed them by or done everything it can to bury them in ineptitude for what seems like eternity. Some teams just can't buy a break, even despite their best intentions and their endless attempts at turning things around.

These teams are among the worst in sports at getting out of their own way.

Pittsburgh Pirates

The Pirates haven't had a winning season since 1992, a string of 18 consecutive seasons that is unmatched in any other sport and haven't visited the World Series since the "We Are Family" team took home the trophy in 1979. A new ballpark in 2001 was supposed to help invigorate a fan base that has become dropped off considerably but hasn't. Numerous rebuilding projects have yielded nothing more than continued trade fodder for the next cry to start over.

2010 was the first year in many where the Pirates didn't trade off numerous components at the deadline, so maybe there is hope on the horizon. Still, a MLB worst record as of this writing doesn't necessarily give much credence to the current efforts either.

Cleveland Browns

Not many cities can claim that they had an owner pack up their team in the middle of the night and take them to another city. The Browns have not played in a championship game since the merger of the AFL and the NFL in 1970, so it was even more frustrating to see the former Browns, the Baltimore Ravens, win a championship in their fourth year of existence in 2000.

Since rejoining the league in 1999, the Browns have had just two winning seasons and are now in the process of developing yet another quarterback of the future. For a team with such a rampant group of fans, surely things have to turn around, right?

Los Angeles Clippers

It is always hard to share your city, let alone your arena with another franchise, but having to do it with the Los Angeles Lakers is a whole other story. While the Lakers have won 17 NBA championships and are on the official Hollywood A-List of hotspots, the Clippers have been in existence for 40 years without even a division title to show for their efforts.

With the signing of Baron Davis prior to the 2009-10 season, and having drafted Eric Gordon from Indiana in 2008 and then Blake Griffin from Oklahoma in 2009, things were looking up for the Clippers. Unfortunately, Griffin suffered a broken kneecap in the final exhibition game prior to his rookie season, further continuing their run of bad luck and forcing them to yell the battle cry of all cursed team; "wait until next year."

Chicago Cubs

You can't get much more cursed than a team that hasn't won a World Series title in over a century, let alone watched six decades pass by since they even played for one. The Cubs are perhaps the most loved losers on the planet, having a rabid fan base that shows up day in and day out to watch them play in one of the best ballparks in the country, just in hopes of being there when the streak ended. Instead, they've met with reminders of Kerry Wood, Mark Prior, Steve Bartman, and numerous other players and incidents that have stood in their way.

Lou Pinella was supposed to be the latest manager who was supposed to spark the turnaround with his leadership, but even he crumbled under that daunting task, choosing to recently retire after failing to get the Cubs over the hump. Someday, they'll climb that mountain, but they still have a long way to climb to get there.

Buffalo Bills

Few teams have ever experienced the string of success that the Buffalo Bills did during the 1990's, winning four consecutive conference championships in order to play for the Super Bowl title as the representative of the AFC. Unfortunately, they also represented the most doomed team in Super Bowl history, finding one way or another to lose all four of those games.

Since being one of the most successful teams of the 1990's, the Bills have posted just one winning record since, posting a 9-7 record in 2004. They've been inept in developing or signing a top-flight quarterback, which has lead to a complete lack of scoring. They've even added a home game in Toronto once a year in order to spice things up, but the future looks pretty bland for a franchise that continues to go in the wrong direction.

Sources:

- New York Yankees, Wikipedia.com

- Boston Celtics, Wikipedia.com

- Montreal Canadiens, Wikipedia.com

- Pittsburgh Pirates, Wikipedia.com

- Baltimore Ravens, Wikipedia.com

- Cleveland Browns, Wikipedia.com

- Los Angeles Lakers, Wikipedia.com

- Los Angeles Clippers, Wikipedia.com

- Chicago Cubs, Wikipedia.com

- Buffalo Bills, Wikipedia.com