Earlier it caught my eye that today is the birthday of one Champ Osteen, who was born in 1877 and who broke into the bigs with the Washington Senators in 1903. However, I wasn't so much interested in Champ Osteen as I was in people with "Champ" or "Champion" in their names. There've only been four of them in Major League history. Those four:
Champ Osteen. Played four years, never saw the playoffs.
Champ Summers. Played 11 years, lost the 1984 World Series.
Bill Champion. Played eight years, never saw the playoffs.
Mike Champion. Played three years, never saw the playoffs.
That piqued my interest, so I decided to expand my query to variations on "Win".
Win Ballou. Played four years, lost the 1925 World Series.
Win Clark. Played one year, never saw the playoffs.
Wynn Hawkins. Played three years, never saw the playoffs.
Win Kellum. Played three years, never saw the playoffs.
Win Mercer. Played nine years, never saw the playoffs.
Win Noyes. Played three years, never saw the playoffs.
Win Remmerswaal. Played two years, never saw the playoffs.
George Winn. Played three years, never saw the playoffs.
Jim Winn. Played six years, never saw the playoffs.
Early Wynn. Played 23 years, lost the 1954 and 1959 World Series.
Jim Wynn. Played 15 years, lost the 1974 World Series.
Randy Winn. Has played 13 years, owns the active record for games played without a postseason appearance.
As you can imagine, by this point I was sensing a pattern, so I cast my eye to the Victors. These aren't necessarily people given the name "Victor"; these are people who went or go by the name "Victor". Just as Champ Osteen wasn't actually named "Champ", what we care about is not these players' names according to a birth document, but rather how these players are referred to in conversation.
I'll spare you the list format, but out of Victor Mata, Victor Rosario, Victor Santos, Victor Zambrano, Victor Marte, Victor Martinez, Victor Alvarez, Victor Bernal, Victor Cole, Victor Cruz, Victor Diaz, and Victor Garate, we don't get so much as a World Series appearance, let alone a World Series championship. The closest we get to a champion Victor is Shane Victorino, but that doesn't count for our purposes, since Victorino isn't a word, doesn't sound like a word, and only has our word in it.
28 players in Major League history have gone by Champ, Champion, Victor, Win, or something sounding like "Win". Of those 28 players, none of them ever won a ring. The Tigers should've thought of this before they made a $50 million investment in doom.