Technology and rules changes eventually brought down the Deadball Era. The steroid era was drug-tested into oblivion.
And now, another of baseball’s scourges is on its last, dying breaths.
RIP to the Tanking Era, a particularly odious period of the game where extreme sucking and emaciated payrolls bred top draft picks and, eventually, a pivot to greatness.
The Houston Astros were the godfathers of it, the Chicago Cubs adopted it and those franchises won consecutive World Series titles in 2016 and ’17. One year later, an architect of the Astros’ burgeoning dynasty was hired in Baltimore as general manager as the Orioles were coming off a 115-loss season.