The Cleveland Spiders have the distinction of being, in their last year of operation, the worst team in the history of major league baseball. The club was born in 1889 when owner Frank De Has Robison moved his Cleveland Blues into the National League from the American Association and renamed them the Spiders.
They finished in the bottom half of the league in their first three years of operation, but the arrival of a rookie pitcher by the name of Cy Young and an outfielder by the name of Jesse Burkett in 1891, soon turned things around.
Under the leadership of manager Patsy Tebeau, the Spiders developed a reputation as the rowdiest, most intimidating team in baseball, next to the Baltimore Orioles. They finished second to the Orioles in 1895 and 1896 and played them in the post season Temple Cup series both years. (The Spiders won the first series four games to one, and lost the second series in four straight games.)
Burkett hit .356 in his eight seasons with the Spiders. (He batted over .400 two seasons in a row - 1895 and '96). Young won 241 games in nine years with the club. He led the league in wins in '95 (35) and strikeouts in '96 (140) and threw a no-hitter against Cincinnati in 1897.
In 1897 the Spiders acquired an American Indian by the name of Lou Sockalexis. In one glorious season he thrilled the Cleveland fans with his tremendous hitting and fielding abilities. Sockalexis hit over .400 until he injured his foot in July... and was never the same afterwards. He finished the year with a .338 average and then made brief appearances in '88 and '89 before finally leaving baseball. (But the fans loved him so much that, 18 years later, they renamed their American League franchise - The Cleveland Indians - in his honor.)
In early 1899 Robison purchased the St. Louis Browns, and then promptly moved all his best players (including future Hall of Famers Young, Burkett, and Bobby Wallace) from Cleveland to the St. Louis club in exchange for a bunch of nobodies.
As a result, the 1899 Spiders racked up the worst single season record in Major League history. That year the Spiders won a total of 20 games and lost 134... finishing 84 games behind first place Brooklyn. Six times the Spiders lost 11 or more straight games and once they went 24 games without a win.
The Spiders played 113 of their 154 games on the road that year, and it was probably just as well, because in the 41 games they played at home they drew a grand total of 6,088 spectators, or an average of 148.5 fans per game! Needless to say, the hapless Spiders folded at the end of the season.