Whitewash (sport)

In Major League Baseball, teams typically play multiple games against each other; if one team wins all the games in that series, it is considered a "series sweep", or, more commonly, simply a "sweep". In many cases, fans of the team in the favoured position, when all but one contest in the current series have been won, will bring brooms (either real brooms or large props for better visibility) to the ballpark with which to taunt the losing team.

On rare occasions, a "season sweep" can be accomplished, in which every contest between two teams is won by the same team. Intra-division season sweeps are relatively rare, since with the relatively large number of games against intra-division teams (19 per divisional matchup), the division rivals are more likely to find at least one lucky matchup. In cases where two teams only play each other once in the season, there is no distinction made between a series and season sweep.

The NBA Playoffs comprises four rounds of best-of-seven series; any team that wins the first four games of a playoff series would have accomplished a series sweep.

In cricket, a whitewash is when a team wins all the matches played in a series of at least 3 matches.

The Stanley Cup Playoffs comprises four rounds of best-of-seven series; any team that wins the first four games of a playoff series would have accomplished a series sweep. The Stanley Cup Finals became a best-of-seven series in 1939; since that year, there have been nineteen occasions where the cup was decided in four games: 1941, 1943, 1944, 1949, 1952, 1960, 1968, 1969, 1970, 1976, 1977, 1982, 1983, 1988, 1992, 1995, 1996, 1997, and 1998. As of 2021, there has not been an instance where a team has achieved a 4–0 series sweep in the Stanley Cup Finals since 1998; as a result, the NHL has gone 22 seasons (or 23 years) without a sweep in the finals, making it the longest active drought in the history of the North American major professional sports leagues.

The term whitewash is also used in rugby when one team loses every match in a particular series. The team that comes last in the Six Nations Championship (where a sweep over the others is referred to as the Grand Slam)[1] has the ignominy of being awarded the wooden spoon, even if they have not suffered a complete whitewash.

Whitewash is a term frequently used in snooker when one player wins all the frames in a match while their opponents wins none. Only three whitewashes have been recorded in the final of snooker ranking tournaments; in the 1989 Grand Prix, the 2020 European Masters, and the 2022 German Masters.[2]

In ATP and WTA tennis, the term whitewash is used when a player fails to win a game in a match (6–0, 6–0, 6–0; or 6–0, 6–0), also called a triple- or double-bagel respectively. Double bagels are more common.