In a league like the MLB, the most reliable way to win a World Series is to have the best team. The Milwaukee Brewers just proved the point: they won 103 games, earned the best regular-season record, went 11-2 in the postseason, and beat the Tampa Bay Rays in five games in a series that ended at Tropicana Field on Oct. 28.
Plenty of champions arrive by a messier route. They lose their best player, fire their manager in May, spend August in fourth place, or sneak into October as a wild card and get hot at the right moment. The 10 MLB teams below did more than that. Each one looked, for long stretches, like a club with no business winning a pennant, and each ended up with a championship parade anyway.
Here are 10 MLB teams that came out of nowhere to win the World Series.
