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- For other events named "World Series", see World Series (disambiguation).
The World Series is the championship series of Major League Baseball, the culmination of the sport's postseason each October. Since the Series takes place in mid-autumn, sportswriters many years ago dubbed the event the Fall Classic, a usage reflected in the logo for the 2008 World Series; it is also sometimes known as the October Classic or simply The Series.
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Encyclopedia
- For other events named "World Series", see World Series (disambiguation).
The World Series is the championship series of Major League Baseball, the culmination of the sport's postseason each October. Since the Series takes place in mid-autumn, sportswriters many years ago dubbed the event the Fall Classic, a usage reflected in the logo for the 2008 World Series; it is also sometimes known as the October Classic or simply The Series. The reigning World Series Champions are the Philadelphia Phillies.
The World Series is played between the champion clubs of the American League and the National League, which collectively include (today) 29 clubs based in the United States and one club from Canada. The "modern" World Series has been an annual event since 1903. Baseball has employed various championship formulas since the 1860s. When the term "World Series" is used by itself, it is usually understood to refer to the "modern" World Series exclusively.
The World Series championship is determined through a best-of-seven playoff. Best-of-seven has been the format of all the modern World Series except in 1903, 1919, 1920 and 1921 when the winner was determined through a best-of-nine playoff. The Series winner is awarded the World Series Trophy, as well as individual World Series rings. The Series winner also receives a larger proportion of the gate receipts than does the Series loser.
The New York Yankees, of the American League, have played in 39 of the 104 Series through 2008 and have won 26 World Series championships, the most of any Major League franchise. For the National League, the Dodgers have appeared in the Series the most at 18 times (9 each in Brooklyn and Los Angeles), but have won the Series only 6 times (once as Brooklyn, five times as Los Angeles). The St. Louis Cardinals have represented the National League 17 times and have won 10 championships, which is the most for any National League team. The Chicago Cubs have the longest streak of not winning the World Series, with their last championship coming in 1908.
Champions prior to and precursors to the modern World Series (1857-1902)
The original World Series
Until the formation of the American Association in 1882 as a second major league, the National Association and then the National League represented the top level of organized baseball in the United States. All championships went to whoever had the best record at the end of the season, without a postseason series being played. Starting in 1884 and going through 1890, the National League and the American Association faced each other in a series of games at the end of the season to determine an overall champion. These matchups were disorganized in comparison to the modern Series: games played ranged from as few as three in 1884 to a high of 15 in 1887 (Detroit beat St. Louis 10 games to 5), and both the 1885 and 1890 Series ended in ties, each team having won three games with one tie game.
Although these series were promoted and referred to as the "The Championship of the United States", "World's Championship Series", or "World's Series" for short, they are not officially recognized as part of World Series history by Major League Baseball. Major League Baseball, in general, regards 19th century events as a prologue to the Modern Era of baseball, which is defined by the two current major leagues.
Until about 1960, the 19th century Series were often considered to have equal merit with the modern Series, particularly in encyclopedias such as Ernest Lanigan's Baseball Cyclopedia from 1922, and Turkin and Thompson's Encyclopedia of Baseball series throughout the 1950s. The Sporting News Record Book, by contrast, which began publishing in the 1930s, only listed the modern Series, although the TSN record books did include regular-season achievements for all the 19th century leagues. Also, a paperback from 1961 called World Series Encyclopedia, edited by Don Schiffer, mentioned the 1880s and 1890s Series' in the introduction but otherwise left them out of the discussion.
1892–1900: "The Monopoly Years"
Following the collapse of the American Association after the 1891 season, four of its clubs were admitted to the National League. The league championship was awarded in 1892 by a playoff between half-season champions. This scheme was abandoned after one season. Beginning in 1893 — and continuing until divisional play was introduced in 1969 — the pennant was awarded to the first-place club in the standings at the end of the season. For four seasons, 1894–97, the league champions played the runners-up in the post season championship series called the Temple Cup. A second attempt at this format was the Chronicle-Telegraph Cup series, which was played only once, in 1900.
In 1901 the American League was formed as a second major league. No championship series would be played in 1901 or 1902 as the National and American Leagues fought each other for business supremacy.
The modern World Series (1903–present)
The first attempt
After two years of bitter competition and player raiding, the National and American Leagues made peace and, as part of the accord, several pairs of teams squared off for interleague exhibition games after the 1903 season. These series were arranged by the participating clubs, as the 1880s World's Series matches had been. One of them matched the two pennant winners, Pittsburgh Pirates of the NL and Boston of the AL (later known as the Red Sox); that one is known as the 1903 World Series. It had been arranged well in advance by the two owners, as both teams were league leaders by large margins. Boston upset Pittsburgh by 5 games to 3, winning with pitching depth behind Cy Young and Bill Dinneen and with the support of the band of Royal Rooters. The Series brought much civic pride to Boston and proved the new American League could beat the Nationals.
The boycott of 1904
The 1904 Series, if it had been held, would have been between the AL's Boston Americans (Boston Red Sox) and the NL's New York Giants (now the San Francisco Giants). At that point there was no governing body for the World Series nor any requirement that a Series be played. Thus the Giants' owner, John T. Brush, refused to allow his team to participate in such an event, citing the "inferiority" of the upstart American League. John McGraw, the Giants' manager, even went so far as to say that his Giants were already world champions since they were the champions of the "only real major league". At the time of the announcement, their new cross-town rivals, the New York Highlanders (now the NY Yankees), were leading the AL, and the prospect of facing the Highlanders did not please Giants management. Boston won on the last day of the season, and the leagues had previously agreed to hold a World's Championship Series in 1904, but it was not binding, and Brush stuck to his original decision. In addition to political reasons, Brush also factually cited the lack of rules under which money would be split, where games would be played, and how they would be operated and staffed.
During the winter of 1904/05, however, feeling the sting of press criticism, Brush had a change of heart and proposed what came to be known as the "Brush Rules", under which the series would be played subsequently. One rule was that player shares would come from a portion of the gate receipts for the first four games only. This was to discourage teams from "fixing" early games in order to prolong the series and make more money. Receipts for later games would be split among the two clubs and the National Commission, the governing body for the sport, which was able to cover much of its annual operating expense from World Series revenue. Most importantly, the now-official and compulsory World's Series matches would be operated strictly by the National Commission itself, not by the participating clubs.
With the new rules in place and the National Commission in control, McGraw's Giants decided to show up for the 1905 Series, and beat the Philadelphia A's four games to one. The Series would be played without interruption for 89 years.
The list of post-season rules evolved over time. In 1925, Brooklyn owner Charles Ebbets convinced others to adopt as a permanent rule the 2-3-2 pattern used in 1924. Prior to 1924, the pattern had been to alternate by game or to make another arrangement convenient to both clubs.
1919: The fix
Gambling and game-fixing had been a problem in professional baseball from the beginning; star pitcher Jim Devlin was banned for life in 1877, when the National League was just two years old. Baseball's gambling problems came to a head in 1919, when the Chicago White Sox conspired to throw the 1919 World Series.
The Sox had won the Series in 1917 and were heavy favorites to beat the Cincinnati Reds in 1919, but first baseman Chick Gandil had other plans. Gandil, in collaboration with gambler Joseph "Sport" Sullivan, approached his teammates and got six of them to agree to throw the Series: starting pitchers Eddie Cicotte and Lefty Williams, shortstop Swede Risberg, left fielder Shoeless Joe Jackson, center fielder Happy Felsch, and utility infielder Fred McMullin. Third baseman Buck Weaver knew of the fix but declined to participate. The Sox, who were promised $100,000 for cooperating, proceeded to lose the Series in eight games, pitching poorly, hitting poorly and making many errors. Though he took the money, Jackson insisted to his death that he played to the best of his ability in the series (he was the best hitter in the series, but had markedly worse numbers in the games the White Sox lost).
During the Series, writer and humorist Ring Lardner had facetiously called the event the "World's Serious". The Series turned out to indeed have serious consequences for the sport. After rumors circulated for nearly a year, the players were suspended in September 1920.
The "Black Sox" were acquitted in a criminal conspiracy trial. However, baseball in the meantime had established the office of Commissioner in an effort to protect the game's integrity, and the first commissioner, Kenesaw Mountain Landis, banned all of the players involved, including Weaver, for life. The White Sox would not win a World Series again until 2005.
The events of the 1919 Series, seguéing into the "live ball" era, marked a point in time of change of the fortunes of a number of teams. The two most prolific World Series winners to date, the Yankees and the Cardinals, did not win their first championship until the 1920s; and three of the teams that were highly successful prior to 1920 (the Red Sox, White Sox and Cubs) went the rest of the 20th century without another World Series win. The Red Sox and White Sox finally won again in 2004 and 2005, respectively. The Cubs are still waiting for their next trophy.
New York Yankee dynasty (1921–1964)
The New York Yankees bought Babe Ruth from the Boston Red Sox after the 1919 season, appeared in their first World Series two years later in 1921, and became frequent participants thereafter. Over a period of 44 years, 1921 to 1964, the Yankees played in the World Series 29 times. This period reached its apex between 1949 and 1964, when the Yankees reached the World Series 14 times in sixteen years (missing only 1954 and 1959), winning nine. From 1949 to 1953 the Yankees won the World Series five years in a row; no other franchise has won more than three consecutively.
1971: the World Series at night
The first major league franchise to put up lights and start playing games at night was the Cincinnati Reds in 1935, but baseball was slow to begin scheduling World Series games at night. Game 4 of the 1971 World Series was the first ever to be played under the lights. Afterwards more and more Series games were scheduled at night, when television audiences were larger. Game 6 of the 1987 World Series was the last World Series game played in the daytime.
1976: the Designated Hitter comes to the World Series
The National and American Leagues operated under essentially identical rules until 1973, when the American League adopted the designated hitter rule, allowing its teams to use another hitter to bat in place of the (usually) weak-hitting pitcher. The National League did not allow for a DH. This presented a problem to the World Series, now a matchup of two league champions playing under different rules. From 1973 to 1975, the World Series did not include a DH. Starting in 1976, the World Series allowed for the use of a DH in even-numbered years only. Finally, in 1986, baseball adopted the current rule in which the DH is used for World Series games played in the AL champion's park but not the NL champion's.
The 1989 earthquake
When the 1989 World Series began, it was notable chiefly for being the first ever World Series matchup between the two San Francisco Bay Area teams, the San Francisco Giants and Oakland Athletics. Oakland won the first two games at home, and the two teams crossed the bridge to San Francisco to play Game 3 on Tuesday, October 17. ABC's broadcast of Game 3 began at 5 p.m. local time, approximately 30 minutes before the first pitch was scheduled. At 5:04, while broadcasters Al Michaels and Tim McCarver were narrating highlights and the teams were warming up, the Loma Prieta earthquake occurred (magnitude 6.9 with an epicenter ten miles (16 km) northeast of Santa Cruz, CA). The earthquake caused substantial property and economic damage in the Bay Area and killed 62 people.
Television viewers saw the video signal deteriorate and heard Michaels say "I'll tell you what, we're having an earth--" before the feed from Candlestick Park was lost. Fans filing into the stadium saw Candlestick sway visibly during the quake. Television coverage later resumed, using backup generators, with Michaels becoming a news reporter on the unfolding disaster. Approximately 30 minutes after the earthquake, Commissioner Fay Vincent ordered the game to be postponed. Fans, workers, and the teams evacuated a blacked out (although still sunlit) Candlestick. Game 3 was finally played on October 27, and Oakland won that day and the next to complete a four-game sweep.
The 1994 strike
After the boycott of 1904, the World Series was played every year until 1994 despite World War I, the global influenza pandemic of 1918–19, the Great Depression of the 1930s, America's involvement in World War II, and even an earthquake in the host cities of the 1989 World Series. It was cancelled in 1994 over money.
As the labor talks began, baseball franchise owners demanded a salary cap in order to limit payrolls, the elimination of salary arbitration, and the right to retain free agent players by matching a competitor's best offer. The Major League Baseball Players Association refused to agree to limit payrolls, noting that the responsibility for high payrolls lay with those owners who were voluntarily offering contracts. One difficulty in reaching a settlement was the absence of a commissioner. When Fay Vincent was forced to resign in 1992, owners did not replace him, electing instead to make Milwaukee Brewers owner Bud Selig acting commissioner. Thus the commissioner, responsible for ensuring the integrity and protecting the welfare of the game, was an interested party rather than a neutral arbiter, and baseball headed into the 1994 work stoppage without an independent commissioner for the first time since the office was founded in 1920.
The previous collective bargaining agreement expired on Dec. 31, 1993, and baseball began the 1994 season without a new agreement. Owners and players negotiated as the season progressed, but owners refused to give up the idea of a salary cap and players refused to accept one. On August 12, 1994, the players went on strike. After a month passed with no progress in the labor talks, Selig canceled the rest of the 1994 season and the postseason on Sept. 14. The World Series would not be played for the first time in 90 years.
The labor dispute would last into the spring of 1995, with owners beginning spring training with replacement players. However, the MLBPA returned to work on April 2, 1995 after a federal judge ruled that the owners had engaged in unfair labor practices. The season started on April 25 and the 1995 World Series would be played as scheduled, with Atlanta beating Cleveland four games to two.
2003: All-Star Game used to determine home-field advantage
Prior to 2003, home-field advantage (the privilege of hosting four games if the Series goes to seven games) in the World Series was a matter of luck, alternating from year to year between the NL and AL. In 2003, Major League Baseball began awarding home-field advantage to the league that wins the All-Star Game. The American League has won every All-Star Game since this change and thus has enjoyed home-field advantage every year. It is unclear who would receive home-field advantage if the All-Star Game ended in a tie, as it did in 2002 when the teams ran out of players, or if the All-Star Game was rained out.
Modern World Series appearances by franchise
World Series record by team or franchise, 1903–2008
| Team † | Titles | Last | Series | Last |
|---|
| New York Yankees [Baltimore Orioles/New York Highlanders] (AL) | 26 | 2000 | 39 | 2003 | | St. Louis Cardinals (NL) | 10 | 2006 | 17 | 2006 | | [Philadelphia/Kansas City] Oakland Athletics (AL) | 9 | 1989 | 14 | 1990 | | Boston Red Sox [Americans] ‡ (AL) | 7 | 2007 | 11 | 2007 | | [Brooklyn] Los Angeles Dodgers ‡ (NL) | 6 | 1988 | 18 | 1988 | | Cincinnati Reds (NL) | 5 | 1990 | 9 | 1990 | | Pittsburgh Pirates (NL) | 5 | 1979 | 7 | 1979 | | [New York] San Francisco Giants (NL) | 5 | 1954 | 17 | 2002 | | Detroit Tigers (AL) | 4 | 1984 | 10 | 2006 | | Chicago White Sox (AL) | 3 | 2005 | 5 | 2005 | | [Boston/Milwaukee] Atlanta Braves (NL) | 3 | 1995 | 9 | 1999 | | [Wash. Senators/Nationals] Minnesota Twins (AL) | 3 | 1991 | 6 | 1991 | | [St. Louis Browns] Baltimore Orioles (AL) | 3 | 1983 | 7 | 1983 | | Philadelphia Phillies (NL) | 2 | 2008 | 6 | 2008 | | Cleveland Indians (AL) | 2 | 1948 | 5 | 1997 | | Chicago Cubs (NL) | 2 | 1908 | 10 | 1945 | | Florida Marlins (NL,1993) * | 2 | 2003 | 2 | 2003 | | Toronto Blue Jays (AL,1977) * | 2 | 1993 | 2 | 1993 | | New York Mets (NL,1962) * | 2 | 1986 | 4 | 2000 | | Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (AL, 1961) * ‡ | 1 | 2002 | 1 | 2002 | | Arizona Diamondbacks (NL, 1998) * | 1 | 2001 | 1 | 2001 | | Kansas City Royals (AL, 1969) * | 1 | 1985 | 2 | 1985 | | San Diego Padres (NL, 1969) * | 0 | | 2 | 1998 | | Houston Astros [Colt .45's] (NL,1962) * | 0 | | 1 | 2005 | | Colorado Rockies (NL,1993) * | 0 | | 1 | 2007 | | Milwaukee Brewers (AL,1969; NL,1998) * ‡ | 0 | | 1 | 1982 | | Tampa Bay Rays [Devil Rays] (AL,1998) * | 0 | | 1 | 2008 | | [Washington Senators] Texas Rangers (AL,1961) * | 0 | | 0 | | | [Montreal Expos] Washington Nationals (NL,1969) * | 0 | | 0 | | | Seattle Mariners (AL,1977) * | 0 | | 0 | | |
| Key to table | AL = American League
NL = National League | | * Joined the AL or NL after 1960 | † Totals include a team's record in a previous city or under another name.
‡
The Red Sox had no official nickname in 1903.
The Dodgers were better known as the Brooklyn Robins in 1916 and 1920.
The Angels were the Anaheim Angels in 2002.
The Brewers were the Seattle Pilots (AL) in 1969.
See individual team articles or Major League franchises for further details.
| See also List of World Series winners
Source: |
Team patterns in the World Series
This information is up to date through the 2008 World Series:
Streaks and droughts
- Since their first championship in 1923, the New York Yankees have won two or more World Series titles in every decade except the 1980s and the current decade (2000-2009), when they won only one. Additionally, they have won at least one American League pennant in every decade since the 1920s.
- The New York Giants' four World Series appearances from 1921 to 1924 are the most consecutive appearances for any National League franchise.
- The 1907-1908 Cubs, 1921-1922 Giants and 1975-1976 Reds are the only National League teams to win back-to-back World Series.
- The 1907-1909 Detroit Tigers and the 1911-1913 New York Giants are the only teams to lose three consecutive World Series.
- The Chicago Cubs hold the record for the longest World Series drought (still active heading into 2009), with their last title coming in 1908 (100 years). In fact, they also hold the longest drought without a World Series appearance, not having won the NL pennant since 1945. Even had they won the 1945 World Series, they would still hold the longest active World Series championship drought, the second longest being since 1948 by the Cleveland Indians.
- Twenty-two of the 27 teams to play in the World Series have won it at least once. The Houston Astros (enfranchised in 1961), Milwaukee Brewers (formerly Seattle Pilots, 1969), San Diego Padres (1969), Colorado Rockies (1993), and Tampa Bay Rays (1998) are the exceptions. The Padres are the only of these five to have appeared twice (1984, 1998). The Rockies and Astros are also the only two World Series participants that have not won a World Series game.
- As of 2008, only three teams (all of them expansion) have not won a pennant: the Texas Rangers (est. 1961), Washington Nationals (est. 1969), and Seattle Mariners (est. 1977).
Game by game
- The home team has won the last eight World Series Game 7s (the 1982 St. Louis Cardinals, 1985 Kansas City Royals, 1986 New York Mets, 1987 and 1991 Minnesota Twins, 1997 Florida Marlins, 2001 Arizona Diamondbacks, and 2002 Anaheim Angels). The 1979 Pittsburgh Pirates are the last team to win a World Series Game 7 on the road.
- The 1981 Los Angeles Dodgers are the last team to win a World Series after losing the first two games on the road.
- There have been 18 World Series 4-game sweeps. Nine different teams have swept a World Series at least once, the Yankees having the most overall (8). The Red Sox and Reds both have done it twice. The Braves, Orioles, White Sox, Dodgers, Athletics and Giants have each swept one. Six of these have also been swept in a World Series at least once, except the Orioles, Red Sox and White Sox. The Red Sox' two World Series sweeps are the most of any team that has never been swept in one.
- The Athletics, Cardinals, Cubs, Tigers and Yankees are the only teams to be swept twice in a World Series. The Athletics and Yankees are the only two of these with at least one World Series sweep to their credit, the other three being among nine teams overall that have never swept a World Series, but have been swept in one (the Astros, Indians, Padres, Phillies, Pirates, Cardinals and Rockies being the others).
- The Cubs in 1907 and the Giants in 1922 won 4 games to 0, but each of those Series' included a tied game and are not considered to be true sweeps.
- The Cincinnati Reds are the only National League team who has swept a World Series since 1963, sweeping the series in 1976 and 1990.
- The Philadelphia Phillies and the Tampa Bay Rays are the first teams to have an elimination game be suspended because of weather, and not have it cancelled. The game was suspended Monday, October 27, 2008 then resumed in the bottom of the sixth on October 29, 2008.
Intra-city matchups
Fourteen "Subway Series" have been played entirely within New York City. Thirteen matched the AL's Yankees with either the New York Giants or Brooklyn Dodgers before those franchises moved to California in 1958. The fourteenth Subway Series, between the Yankees and New York Mets, took place in 2000. Two other Series matched up teams from the same city. In 1906 the Chicago White Sox beat the Chicago Cubs in six games, and in 1944 the St. Louis Cardinals defeated the St. Louis Browns in six games. All six games of the 1944 Series were played on the same field, Sportsman's Park, which the two teams shared. The 1989 Series featured two teams from the Bay Area, separated by a distance nearly equivalent to that of the Subway Series.
The original sixteen teams
At the time the first modern World Series began in 1903, each league had eight clubs, all of which survive today. Those are the original sixteen referred to here.
- Every original team has won at least two World Series titles. The Philadelphia Phillies were the last of the original teams to win their first Series, in 1980. They were also the last to win at least two, with their second Series victory in 2008.
- The last original American League team to win its first World Series was the Baltimore Orioles, winning in 1966.
- The Orioles were also the last original team in the majors to make their first World Series appearance, as the St. Louis Browns in 1944. They have won three World Series, in six appearances, since moving to Baltimore. The last original National League team to make their modern World Series debut were the St. Louis Cardinals in 1926, which they also won.
- The Yankees have defeated all eight original NL teams in a World Series at some point. Conversely, they have lost at least one World Series to every original NL team except the Chicago Cubs and the Philadelphia Phillies.
Expansion teams (after 1960)
- The 2001 Arizona Diamondbacks was the fastest expansion franchise ever to win both a pennant and a World Series (4th season), after being founded in 1998. Second fastest were the 1997 Florida Marlins, after being founded in 1993 (5th season). The fastest AL expansion franchise to a pennant are the Tampa Bay Rays in 2008 (11th season) and the fastest AL expansion franchise to a World Series title was the Toronto Blue Jays in 1992 (16th season).
- While the New York Mets (NL) were the first expansion team to win or appear in the World Series, the American League would have to wait until 1980 for its first expansion-team World Series appearance, and until 1985 for its first expansion team win. Both were by the Kansas City Royals. The AL also had two expansion teams appear in the World Series (the Milwaukee Brewers being the second, in 1982) before the National League's second expansion team to appear--the San Diego Padres in 1984.
- No two out of the fourteen post-1960 expansion teams have yet met each other in a World Series, although eleven expansion teams have now contested at least one Series (each time against one of the sixteen teams established by 1903). Expansion teams are 9–9 in the World Series, with three teams (the New York Mets, Toronto Blue Jays and Florida Marlins) each winning two. The three expansion teams that have not yet won a League pennant and a World Series appearance are the Texas Rangers (formerly the last Washington Senators), Seattle Mariners and Washington Nationals (formerly Montreal Expos).
Other notes
- The team with the better regular season winning percentage has won the World Series 51 times, or 49% (51 of 104) of the time.
- The Toronto Blue Jays are the only non-U.S. team to ever win a pennant or a World Series, doing both twice, in 1992 and 1993.
- No team has come back from an 0-3 deficit in the World Series. Five teams have come back from a 1-3 deficit to win: the 1903 Boston Red Sox (who won four games in a row to take that best-of-nine series five games to three), the 1925 Pittsburgh Pirates, the 1958 New York Yankees, the 1968 Detroit Tigers, 1979 Pittsburgh Pirates and 1985 Kansas City Royals.
- The last five World Series (2004-2008) have all gone no more than five games. This is the longest streak in World Series history without a Game 6.
- Nine World Series have ended with "walkoff" hits, i.e., games and Series ended when the home team won with a base hit in the bottom of the ninth or in extra innings. (Also, the 1912 World Series ended in a walkoff sacrifice fly.) The first walkoff Series winner came in the 1924 World Series, when Earl McNeely doubled home Muddy Ruel in the bottom of the 12th inning of Game 7 to win a championship for the Washington Senators; the most recent was the 2001 World Series, which ended with Luis Gonzalez blooping a single over the head of Derek Jeter to score Jay Bell. Two men, Bill Mazeroski in 1960 and Joe Carter in 1993, have ended a World Series with a walk-off home run. Mazeroski's was a solo shot in the bottom of the ninth of Game 7 to win a championship for the Pittsburgh Pirates, while Carter's was a three-run shot in Game 6 that won a championship for the Toronto Blue Jays.
International impact and explanation of the term "World" Series
The title of this championship may seem odd to some readers from countries where baseball is not a major sport (or even where it is), because the "World" Series is confined to the champions of two baseball leagues that currently operate only in the United States and Canada.
The explanation is that when the term "World's Championship Series" was first used in the 1880s, baseball at a highly-skilled level was almost exclusively confined to North America, especially the United States. Thus it was understood that the winner of the major league championship was the best baseball team in the world. The title of this event was soon shortened to "World's Series" and later to "World Series". "The Series", by itself, capitalized, is understood to mean "The World Series", in the appropriate context.
The United States, Canada and Mexico (Liga Mexicana de Beisbol, established 1925) continued to be the only professional baseball countries until some decades into the 20th century. The first Japanese professional baseball efforts began in 1920. The current Japanese leagues date from the late 1940s. Various Latin American leagues also formed around that time.
By the 1990s, baseball was played at a highly skilled level in many countries, resulting in a strong international flavor to the Series, as many of the best players from the Pacific Rim, Latin America, the Caribbean, and elsewhere now play on Major League rosters. The notable exception is Cuban nationals, due to the political situation between the USA and Cuba (despite that barrier, over the years a number of Cuba's finest ballplayers have defected to the United States to play in the American professional leagues). Players from the Japanese Leagues also have a more difficult time coming to the Major Leagues because they must first play 10 years in Japan before becoming free agents. Reaching the high-income Major Leagues tends to be the goal of many of the best players around the world.
Early in 2006, Major League Baseball conducted the inaugural World Baseball Classic, to establish a true world's championship in the way the term is normally used for other international sports. Teams of professional players from 16 nations participated, and Japan won the first World Baseball Classic championship. Olympic baseball was instituted as a medal sport in 1992, but in 2005 the International Olympic Committee voted to eliminate baseball, and it will be off the Olympic program in 2012.
The World Series itself retains a US-oriented atmosphere. The title of the event is often presented on television as merely a brand name in the same sense as the Super Bowl, and thus the term "World Series Championship" is sometimes used. However, the origin of the term lives on, as with these words of Frank Thomas in the Chicago White Sox victory celebration in 2005: "We're world's champions, baby!" At the close of the 2006 Series, Commissioner Bud Selig pronounced the St. Louis Cardinals "champions of the world". Likewise, the cover of Sports Illustrated magazine for November 6, 2006, featured Series MVP David Eckstein and was subtitled "World Champions". Immediately after the final putout of the 2008 World Series, TV announcer Joe Buck stated, "Phillies are world champions."
Image gallery
Image:WorldSeries1903-640.jpg|Rooftop view of a 1903 World Series game in Boston
Image:West Side Park 1906 World Series.JPG|Game action in the 1906 Series in Chicago (the only all-Chicago World Series to date)
Image:Wamby19201010UATP.JPG|Bill Wambsganss completes his unassisted triple play in 1920
Image:1924worldseries.jpg|Washington's Bucky Harris scores his home run in the fourth inning of Game 7 (October 10, 1924)
Image:The Catch.png|Willie Mays' catch in Game 1 of the 1954 World Series
See also
Source books
- Ernest Lanigan, Baseball Cyclopedia, 1922, originally published by Baseball Magazine, available as a reprint from .
- Lamont Buchanan, The World Series and Highlights of Baseball, 1951, E. P. Dutton & Company.
- Richard M. Cohen, David Neft, Roland T. Johnson, Jordan A. Deutsch, The World Series, 1976, Dial Press. Contains play-by-play accounts of all World Series from 1903 onward.
- The New York Times, The Complete Book of Baseball: A Scrapbook History, 1980, Bobbs_Merrill.
- Sporting News, Baseball Record Book and Baseball Guide, published annually since ca. 1941.
- Jerry Lansch, Glory Fades Away: The Nineteenth Century World Series Rediscovered, 1991, Taylor Publishing. ISBN 0-87833-726-1
Other sources
External links
- "postseason" page, listing every World Series, with links to play-by-play summaries of every game
- - Official Website
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