The Miami Marlins haven't gotten off to the best start this season. They've won only one of their first nine games and are already seven games back of the first place Atlanta Braves in the NL East. To make matters worse, they play just a few miles away from perhaps the hottest team in professional sports these days, the Miami Heat. LeBron James and company's 62 wins also put the Marlins in danger of a dubious distinction: joining the all-time city Hall of Shame. Every few years, a team is so bad that another team in the same city that plays significantly fewer games wins more than they do. In short the Heat are "Pulling a Beatrice Straight," who won an Oscar for best supporting actress in 1976 despite being on camera in "Network" for less than six minutes.

The 1993 Dallas Cowboys needed just 16 games to win more games than the crosstown Dallas Mavericks, who played 82 NBA games. The Detroit Tigers have managed to get outpaced by their citymates three times in the last two decades, including by both the NHL's Red Wings and the NBA's Pistons in 2003.

This feat is common during strike-shortened seasons, but for fairness purposes we eliminated those. (There were five instances in MLB's strike-shortened 1981.)

The most embarrassing season of all, however, goes to the 1944 New York Rangers, who won fewer games than football's Giants.

—Kevin Clark