Since 1980, only three other teams have produced the exacta of a 100-win regular season and World Series title: the 1984 Detroit Tigers, '86 New York Mets and the '98 Yankees, the only other team to do it since the playoffs expanded to three series in 1995.

The '98 Yankees were lauded as one of the great teams of all time when they swept the San Diego Padres in the Series. The first of three consecutive Yankee championship teams, they won 114 games, took the American League East Division by 22 games and whipped through the playoffs, losing only two postseason games.

Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, in the champagne-soaked clubhouse in San Diego, said at the time the team was "as good as any there has ever been."

This year's Yankees probably won't draw such declarations, but they could be the best team since. They won their division by eight games and went 11-4 in the postseason.

Paul O'Neill, a member of the '98 Yankees and three other world championship teams in New York, thinks this group deserves to be mentioned in the company of the '98 team.

"On paper, they do. These guys match up talent-wise, there's no doubt about it," O'Neill said. "This team was put together for one thing and that's to win the World Series." O'Neill, an analyst for the Yankees' YES Network, notes the common thread in both teams: Derek Jeter, Jorge Posada, Mariano Rivera and Andy Pettitte.

"The funny thing about it is those teams in the '90s would not have won without them and this team today would not win without them. … It's really neat to see."

As expected, the current team wasn't quite ready for the historical discussion before the championship was secured.

"Let's not jump to get there," Posada said Tuesday. "But we do have a special team."

Manager Joe Girardi was a backup catcher to Posada in 1998.

"I think you have to win a World Series before you think about comparing clubs," he said before Wednesday's game. "If we're fortunate enough to do it and we get the job done, I guess we can talk about it."

The '86 Mets won 108 games to coast to the NL East title by 21½ games, then beat the Houston Astros in six games and the Boston Red Sox in seven in the memorable Series. The '84 Tigers won 104 and the AL East by 15 games, then lost just once in the postseason.

The 100-win/championship exacta was fairly common in the 1970s when the league championship series were best-of-five. In the 10-year period between 1969 (the first year of the LCS) and 1978, six teams won 100 games and the title: the '69 Mets, '70 Baltimore Orioles, '75 and '76 Cincinnati Reds, and '77 and '78 Yankees.

If the Yankees had lost the final two games to the Phillies, their distinction would have been watered down considerably.

Seven teams have won 100 and lost the Series since 1985, most recently the 2004 St. Louis Cardinals.

Enlarge By Robert Deutsch, USA TODAY With the Yankees' defeat of the Phillies, the team rivals the 1998 squard that included Scott Brosius, above, for the best single-season performance.