What is the World Series?

Question

I thought that the Indians vs. the Red Sox was the World Series. I don't understand what exactly the World Series is, as well as why it is called the World Series when it is only American teams.

Answer 1

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. They failed to qualify for the post-season in 2007, so a new team will be crowned this year.

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.[1] 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.

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 in 2003, following significant criticism after the 2002 All-Star Game ended in a tie. 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. For subsequent events Major League Baseball adopted the slogan "This one counts". Prior to 2003, home-field advantage had alternated between the leagues from year to year. The American League held the home-field edge in 2002, the last year of the "alternating" approach, and has won every All-Star Game through the 2007 season. Thus the 2007 season marks the sixth consecutive year of American League home field advantage. (The National League, winless in the All-Star game since the 1997 season, has yet to take advantage of the current format.)

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, a player who bats in place of one of the nine position players and does not play in the field himself. The DH almost always hits for the pitcher. In a National League ballpark, all nine position players must hit. 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.)

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 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, 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 New York World newspaper sponsored it. There is no evidence at all supporting that hypothesis.[3]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.

Answer 2

Baseball is divided into 2 Leagues. The American League and the National League. Prior to playing for the World Series, each league has playoff games to see which team will represent each league in the World Series. The Boston Red Sox & Cleveland Indians were playing a league championship series to see which team would win the American League Pennent and go to the World Series. Last week the Colorado Rockies won their league championship series against the Arizona Diamondbacks, and the Rockies won the National Leage Pennent. Now the Colorado Rockies (National League Champions) and the Boston Red Sox (American League Champions) will play in the World Series starting on wednesday.

Click link below to get more detail about the World Series and how it got it's name.

Answer 3

The world series of baseball is the set of matches played between the winner of the american league and the winner of the national league. Indians v. Red Sox was the series played to determine the winner of the american league. As the Red Sox have won that series, they now progress to the world series where they will play the Colorado Rockies, the winner of the national league.

It has been called the world series for well over one hundred years. When it was first called the world series, any baseball leagues that may have existed other than the one in the U.S. were probably too far away to make travel and competition feasible. Also, the level of competition in any other league was surely much lower then, and it still is today. Although leagues around the world have been filled with more talent, the league in the U.S. has by far the most talent and is clearly better than any other league.

The namers of the world series probably wanted to give it a title that was meaningful and important, and thus chose to use the word "world" in the title.

Answer 4

The World Series is a 7-game competition between the American League Champion and the National League Champion. The Indians and Red Sox were competing in the American League for a place in the World Series.

Answer 5

The series that was just concluded was the American Chapionship series. Now the American league winner(Boston) faces the National League winner (Colorado) in the World Series which is best 4 out of 7 games!

Answer 6

I work with a French girl who was stunned to find out I didn't have a favorite F1 race car driver. As a matter of fact, I can't name ANY F1 driver. I also don't give a rat's **** about bicycle racing, a super huge sport in Europe. But my wife thinks football is boring, while she loves watching those ridiculous dog obstacle course events. It's all personal preference. I think the final game of the 2006 World Cup had something like 12% of every human on Earth watching. That's a pretty good rating. My opinion? Watch what you enjoy, and to hell with everyone else.

Answer 7

The World series is the playoff between the best team from the American League, and the National league, and it is a best of seven series.
We call it the world series, as with the exception of Canada and Britain, most of the rest of the world pretty much doesn't matter.
Besides, the vast majority of us think soccer (not Football) is rather effeminate and boring.

Answer 8

Well there are 2 leagues in MLB..The National and American..The world series is when the best teams from each league play.Its called the world series because all of the best players in the world come to America to play.So it is basically the team that wins in the best in the world.NOt to mention Baseball is an American invented sport.

Answer 9

jennifer k, since you are not aware what teams were around when the world series first started, it might help to stay out of the answers. Canadian teams first played in the MLB in 1969; the world series has been around since 1901.

Answer 10

When they say World series, fo pros its just america and canada. For kids, its all over the world. For pros world series, its the top teams, battling it out to be number one. Detroit Tigers started out great and lost more games during the year. It was an iffy call on if they were to be in the world seires. Look at me! i was on the world series team for 12 year olds. We start out in a city, then another one, then michigan finals. Then, wed go to states and at the end, Penselvania. My team sucked tho. we only made it to the second cityy! XDD

Answer 11

It's the annual competition in baseball when the top teams from the 2 American baseball leagues slug it out for the championship. It's the world as it existed for baseball fans when it was named ...