If the recent, anybody-can-win-the-title years of Major League Baseball seem like a welcome break from the half-decade of Yankees dominance, consider that, according to the New York Times, "this current period has a long way to go to match the previous period in which a different team won each year. From 1978 through 1990, 12 different teams won the World Series. Those 12 were half of the major league population in those years." But it turns out the NYT needed to recheck its figures.

The LA Dodgers of Los Angeles won the title in both 1981 and 1988 (baseball-almanac.com), bringing their (still-terrible) record in World Series up to 6-12. Astute readers will note that the gap between repeat champions was seven years, exactly the same gap that exists today. Also, during those years, there were 26 teams, not 24.

The NYT noticed the problem but then failed to correct it properly. Chass clearly failed, when writing the article, to notice LA's two championships in the time span; he wrote, "From 1978 through 1990, 13 different teams won the World Series. Those 13 were half of the major league population in those years."

Here's how the Times correction reads:

The On Baseball column on Monday about the lessons learned from the World Series won by the St. Louis Cardinals, the seventh different champion in seven years, misstated the number of different teams that won the title from 1978 to 1990. It was 12, not 13.

The paper did nothing more than substitute the number 12 for 13; they failed to correct all of the wrong information in the sentence. Had Chass noticed the '88 Dodgers, the article could have taken on a completely different tone, noting that the era of revenue sharing has led to as many different champions in successive years as any era in baseball history.

Finally, one quick picky note on the phrasing of the Times correction. The number of different teams that won the title from 1978 to 1990 could be confused for 11. The number of different teams that won the title from 1978 through 1990 is, unambiguously, 12.