This poster of the San Francisco Giants celebrating the clinching of the NL West in 2000 reminds us that the history of 20th- and 21st-century baseball can be broken down into these eras:
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One-Heap Era: 1901-1902, 1904
Two-Heap Era: 1903, 1905-1968
Three-Heap Era: 1969-1993*
No-Heap Era: 1994
Four-Heap Era: 1995-2011
Five-Heap Era: starting in 2012?
*While it would have been possible for there to have been four heaps in 1981, the World Champion Dodgers made the playoffs by winning the first half. Since nobody knew at the time of the strike that the season would be divided into halves, there was no way for the Dodgers or any of the other three division leaders to know they had cause to get into a joyscrum. Had one of the first-half winners gone on to win it all, 1981 would have to be included in the Four-Heap Era - although I will listen to a good argument that supports the view that because the possibility of four celebrations existed, 1981 belongs in the Four-Heap Era.
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