Information AboutWorld Series |
For other events named "World Series", see World Series (disambiguation) . The World Series is the championship series of Major League Baseball and 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". The St. Louis Cardinals are the current (2006) World Series champions. The World Series is played between the winners of the American League and National League , which currently includes 30 clubs based in certain U.S. and Canadian cities. The modern World Series has been an annual event since 1903 , with the exceptions of 1904 and 1994 . 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 New York Yankees have played in 39 of the 102 Series up to and including 2003 and have won 26 World Series championships, which is far more than any other Major League franchise. The St. Louis Cardinals have won ten championships, which is the second most all time and the most for any National League team. List Of World Series The Cardinals also hold a 3 Series to 2 edge against the Yankees in Series play, the only one of the "classic eight" National League teams to lead the Yankees overall. OVERVIEW The first modern World Series was held between , 2006 Until 1969, teams reached the Fall Classic merely by having the best records in their respective leagues. If two teams were tied for the best record at the end of the scheduled season, the winner of a head-to-head " Pennant Playoff " game between the two teams was declared winner of the "pennant" (league championship), and thus represented the league in the Series. The reorganization of each league into two divisions for the 1969 season changed the road to the Series. The winners of the East and West divisions of each league would meet in a best-of-five (later best-of-seven) League Championship Series to determine the winner of the pennant. The split into two divisions was partially based on the premise that there were too many teams in the league to have one division ("you can't sell a twelfth place team"). It also ensured more "pennant races" to generate more regular-season attendance, along with more post-season revenue. A further change occurred in 1994 with the expansion of the Major Leagues and the establishment of the Central Divisions. This created an odd number of teams in each league's playoff tournament, so a fourth playoff team was added. It was called the "wildcard", patterned after the National Football League 's playoff system of including the best non-divisional winner (by win-loss record) in the playoffs. This created additional regular-season races as well as further augmenting post-season income. It also had the inevitable effect of playing the game's prime event in the latter part of October, with weather often much colder and harsher than in the early part of the month, especially in the Midwest and Northeast. Under the current format, normally the division-winner with the highest winning percentage in the league faces the wildcard in the best-of-five first round, or Division Series, and the two remaining teams face each other in the first round. However, if both the wildcard qualifier and the best divisional win-loss record come from the same division (which has happened frequently), the wildcard instead plays the division winner with the second-best record in the first round while the remaining two teams face each other. The winners of the two Division Series play in the League Championship Series for the right to play in the World Series. In case two teams tie for the fourth playoff spot in a league, a single-game "wild-card playoff" is required to determine the final qualifier. Although the current structure was established in 1994, the players' strike canceled the post-season events that year. Playoffs with the current structure were first played in 1995. STRUCTURE Home-field advantage is determined by the results of the All-Star Game. By virtue of the American League winning the 2007 All-Star Game, it has home-field advantage in the 2007 World Series. The series follows what is called a 2-3-2 format with the first two and last two games being played in the stadium of the club with home-field advantage. The other three games are played in the opponent's stadium. This All-Star Game determination of home-field was instituted following the 2002 Midsummer Classic which ended in a tie, which drew significant criticism. In order to prevent a future repeat of that situation, Commissioner Bud Selig decided to give the All-Star Game a more competitive element, by making its result tangibly meaningful. The slogan "This one counts" has been used for the Classic. Prior to 2003, home-field advantage had alternated between the leagues from year to year. The American League happened to have home-field edge in 2002, the last year of the "alternating" approach, and began a winning streak of All-Star Games in 2003. Thus the 2007 season marks the sixth consecutive year of American League home field advantage. Since 1986 , the Designated Hitter rule has been applied according to the rules normally in effect at the home ballpark. In an American League ballpark, both teams may use a designated hitter to bat for the pitcher. In a National League ballpark, both teams' pitchers must bat. From 1976 through 1985 , the designated hitter was used for all games in even-numbered years and no games in odd-numbered years. The designated hitter was not used at all prior to the 1976 Series, although the DH rule had been adopted by the AL in 1973 . A portion of the gate receipts from the World Series — and, from 1969 onward, the other rounds of postseason play preceding it — is used to fund a Players' Pool, from which descending shares are distributed to the World Series winner, the World Series loser, all the other teams qualifying for the playoffs but not reaching the World Series, and certain other teams not qualifying for the playoffs. Prior to 1969, teams finishing in the First Division , or top half of the leagues' standings, received such shares; today, only the teams finishing second in their divisions but not earning a Wild Card receive them. The shares for the actual participants are limited to the gate receipts of the minimum number of games (4) necessary to decide the series; that rule has been in place from the beginning, to keep the games "honest" by taking away any financial incentive for conspiring to extend the number of games. The Series has run to eight games four times: 1903, 1912, 1921, and the ill-fated 1919 Series. The 1912 Series was best-of-seven but included one Tie game; the other three were best-of-nine. (The other tie games in the modern Series were in 1907 and 1922, both of which ran for five games.) INTERNATIONAL IMPACT, AND EXPLANATION OF THE TERM "WORLD" SERIES The title of this championship may be confusing 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 United States continued to be the only professional baseball country 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 '' magazine for November 6 , 2006 , features Series MVP David Eckstein and is subtitled "World Champions". A recent myth has arisen that the "World" in "World Series" came about because the '', originally published in the Fall 2001 issue of Outside the Lines, the SABR Business of Baseball Committee newsletter, accessed 23 October , 2006 The annual publication called the '' World Almanac '' was originally published by the ''New York World''. Its ambiguous title and U.S.-centric content may have inspired the World Series myth, either facetiously or naively. Humorist Ring Lardner , when writing columns about ongoing World Series in the 1910s (including the infamous 1919 Series) mocked the pomp surrounding the games he covered (as well as his own persona) by calling the event the "World's Serious". OTHER USES OF "WORLD SERIES" The term ''World Series'' has been appropriated by other championships, such as the College World Series , the Little League World Series , the World Series Of Golf , the World Series Of Poker , the World Series Of Birding and the World Series Of Martial Arts . World Series Cricket was a short-lived but influential Cricket competition. Additionally, the World Series Of Darts & World Series Of Blackjack made their debuts in 2006. 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. In 1882 and 1883, the champions of the American Association and National League played a series of exhibition games at the end of the season, but the winner of the series was not recognized as the champion of both leagues. Starting in 1884 and going through 1891, the National League and the American Association played an official series of games at the end of the season to determine an overall champion. Although these series were promoted and referred to as the "The Championship of the United States",1 "World's Championship Series", or "World's Series" for short, they are not officially recognized as part of World Series history by , 2006 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. It is worth pointing out, however, that until about the 1960s, 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 then and now do include regular-season achievements for all the 19th Century leagues. 1892–1900: "The Monopoly Years" See . 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) before a game during the 1903 World Series]] 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 Pilgrims (later known as Red Sox) of the AL; 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 on the field. The boycott of 1904 The 1904 Series would have been between the AL's Boston Pilgrims and the NL's New York Giants . The Giants' owner, John T. Brush, refused to allow his team to play, 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 Highlanders , were leading the AL. 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 cited the lack of rules under which money would be split and games would be played (sited and staffed). During the winter of 1904/05, however, feeling the sting of press criticism, Brush saw the light 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. 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 See Also: Black Sox Scandal Gambling and game-fixing had been a problem in 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 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. 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, segueing into the "lively ball" era, marked a point in time of change of the fortunes of a number of teams. Today's two most prolific winners, 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. The 1989 earthquake When the 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 a great deal of destruction in the Bay Area and killed 57 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. Commissioner Fay Vincent ordered the game to be postponed approximately 30 minutes after the earthquake, and fans, workers, and the teams evacuated a blacked out 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 See Also: 1994 Major League Baseball strike After the boycott of 1904, the World Series was played faithfully every year despite World War I , the Great Depression of the 1930's, America's involvement in World War II , and even an earthquake in the host city of the 1989 World Series . However, it would not be played in 1994 because of 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 insuring 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 owners guilty of 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. WORLD SERIES APPEARANCES (MODERN) BY FRANCHISE :''See List Of World Series Appearances By Franchise. Feast and famine
OTHER NOTABLE NOTES Comebacks and sudden-victory
Going the distance
Expansion teams (since 1961 )
Wild Card teams (since 1995 )
Local competitors
Before the St. Louis Browns moved to Baltimore, they won an AL pennant in 1944 and played an all-Missouri Series against the Cardinals, their tenants in Sportsman's Park. The other intrastate matches since 1960 have been California (A's vs. Dodgers, 1974 & 1988 and A's vs. Giants 1989); Missouri (Royals vs. Cardinals, 1985); New York (state) (Yankees vs. Mets, 2000). The earliest intrastate match was between the New York Giants and the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1889 , when the Dodgers were in the American Association. Brooklyn was a separate city then.
Coast to coast
General information
Individual achievements
New and Old
Early and late dates The World Series games, as well as the playoff series' preceding it, are typically associated with October. Games have also been played in September and November, under these circumstances:
The World Series in fiction
IMAGE GALLERY |
Image:Wamby19201010UATPJPG
| "http://wwwinformationdelightinfo/information/entry/Bill_Wambsganss" class="copylinks">Bill Wambsganss completes his unassisted triple play in 1920 |
|
Image:1924worldseriesjpgWashington's
| "http://wwwinformationdelightinfo/information/entry/Bucky_Harris" class="copylinks">Bucky Harris scores his home run in the fourth inning of Game 7, October 10, 1924 |
|
|
|