For the first decade of the 21st Century, the Cincinnati Reds were not a successful baseball team. They played no postseason games; they won zero division titles; and they finished above .500 only once.
In half of those years, however, they began the season in a manner similar to the 2017 Reds, winning more games than they lost and inspiring cautious optimism among a historically jaded fan base. (Even from three time zones away, I was just as cynical as anyone, as whenever the Dodgers announced their home schedule for the year, I always hoped for the Reds to visit early in the season before the team inevitably crashed and burned.