The World Series is the annual championship series of Major League Baseball (MLB), a professional baseball league in North America, and has been contested since 1903 between the champion teams of the American League (AL) and the National League (NL). The winning team, determined through a best-of-seven playoff (except in 1903 and from 1919–1921, when a best-of-nine format was used), is awarded the Commissioner's Trophy.
The series is traditionally played in October, although before expansion of the regular-season schedule from 154 to 162 games the event occasionally started in late September (most recently in 1955) and the entire 1918 series took place early in that month due to the World War I "Work or Fight" order forcing an early end to that year's regular season, while some more recent editions have been contested into November due to in-season delays and expansion of earlier postseason rounds. Because the series is played in the fall (autumn) season in North America, it is often referred to as the Fall Classic.
Before the AL and NL were split into divisions in 1969, the team with the best regular-season win–loss record in each league won that league's pennant and advanced to the World Series, barring a tie necessitating a pennant playoff. Since 1969 each league has conducted a League Championship Series (ALCS and NLCS) preceding the World Series to determine which of its teams will advance, while those series have been preceded in turn by Division Series (ALDS and NLDS) since 1995, and Wild Card games or series in each league since 2012. Until 2002, home-field advantage in the World Series alternated from year to year between the AL and NL. From 2003 to 2016, home-field advantage was given to the league that won that year's All-Star Game. Starting in 2017, home-field advantage was awarded to the league champion team with the better regular-season win–loss record regardless of that team's seeding in earlier postseason rounds (i.e. a Wild Card team in one league will be given home-field advantage over a division winner in the other league if it had the better record or wins the tie-breaking procedure).
The World Series has been contested 121 times through 2025, with the AL team winning 68 times and the NL team 53.
Precursors to the modern World Series (1857–1902)
The original World Series
Before 1882, when the American Association was formed as a second major league, the National Association of Professional Base Ball Players (1871–1875) and then the National League (founded 1876) represented the top level of organized baseball in the United States. All championships were awarded to the team with the best record at the end of the season, without a postseason series being played. From 1884 to 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 series were disorganized in comparison to the modern World Series, with the terms arranged through negotiation of the owners of the championship teams beforehand. The number of games played ranged from as few as three in 1884 (Providence defeated New York three games to zero), to a high of fifteen in 1887 (Detroit beat St. Louis ten games to five). Both the 1885 and 1890 Series ended in ties, each team having won three games with one tie game.
The series was promoted and referred to as "The Championship of the United States", "World's Championship Series", or "World's Series" for short. An urban myth holds the name "World Series" came from a putative sponsorship by the New York World newspaper. The earliest such claim found by Snopes was made in 1991 by Nick Auf der Maur. Ben Zimmer posits confusion with The World Almanac, whose name does reflect being founded by the newspaper.
The 19th-century competitions are not officially recognized as part of World Series history by Major League Baseball, which considers 19th-century baseball to be a prologue to the modern baseball era. As late as approximately 1960, some sources treated the 19th-century series on an equal basis with the 20th-century series. After about 1930, however, many authorities date the modern World Series to 1903 and discuss the earlier contests separately.
(For example, the 1929 World Almanac lists "Baseball World's Championships 1884–1928" in a single table, while the 1943 edition lists "Baseball World's Championships 1903–1942".)
1892–1900: "The Monopoly Years"
Following the collapse of the American Association after the 1891 season, the National League was again the only major league. The league championship was awarded in 1892 by a playoff between split 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, 1894–1897, the league champions played the runners-up in the postseason 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 were played in 1901 or 1902 as the National and American Leagues fought each other for business supremacy (in 1902, the top teams instead opted to compete in a football championship).
Modern World Series (1903–present)
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 following the 1903 season. These series were arranged by the participating clubs, as the 1880s World's Series matches had been. One of them, a best-of-nine affair matching that year's pennant winners – the Pittsburgh Pirates of the NL and Boston Americans (later known as the Red Sox) of the AL – has come to be regarded as the 1903 World Series. It had been arranged well in advance by the two club owners, as both teams were league leaders by large margins.
Boston upset Pittsburgh by five games to three, winning with pitching depth behind Cy Young and Bill Dinneen and with the support of the band of Royal Rooters.
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 New York 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 cited a number of legitimate grievances, including the lack of rules under which revenue would be split, where games would be played, and how they would be operated and staffed.
Emergence of formal Series rules
During the winter of 1904–1905, 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 were 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 was split among the two clubs and the National Baseball Commission, then 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 Series matches were 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 made it to the 1905 Series and beat the Philadelphia Athletics four games to one. Since then the Series has been held every year except 1994, when it was canceled by a players' strike. The name of the event, initially known as the World's Championship Series, was gradually shortened in common usage to "World's Series" and, by the 1930s, to "World Series".
The list of postseason rules evolved over time. From 1919 to 1921, the best-of-nine format first used in 1903 was employed. In 1925, Brooklyn owner Charles Ebbets persuaded others to adopt as a permanent rule the 2–3–2 home game pattern first used in 1924. Previously, the pattern had been to alternate by game or to make another arrangement convenient to both clubs. The 2–3–2 pattern has been used ever since except for the 1943 and 1945 World Series, which used a 3–4 pattern to comply with World War II travel restrictions; in 1944, the normal pattern was followed because both teams were based in the same home ballpark.
1919 Black Sox Scandal
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 eight players of the Chicago White Sox were alleged to have 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, hitting .324 for the series from 11 hits and committing no errors in the field.
The Sox, who were promised $100,000 for cooperating, proceeded to lose the best-of-nine 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, including having hit the series' only home run, 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 eventually acquitted in a criminal conspiracy trial.
Meanwhile, to deal with the fallout from the scandal baseball owners had agreed to reform the discredited National Commission. However, when they offered esteemed federal judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis a role on the reformed Commission, he quickly made clear he would only accept an appointment as the sole Commissioner of Baseball with virtually unchecked authority over the game. The owners agreed. Immediately after and notwithstanding the acquittals, 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 "live ball" era, marked a point in time of change of the fortunes of several teams. The two most prolific World Series winners to date, the New York Yankees and the St. Louis Cardinals, did not win their first championship until the 1920s; and three of the teams that were highly successful prior to 1920 (the Boston Red Sox, Chicago White Sox, and Chicago Cubs) failed to win another World Series for the rest of the 20th century. The Red Sox and White Sox finally won again in 2004 and 2005, respectively. The Cubs won the World Series in 2016, over a century after its 1908 championship. They did not appear in the World Series from 1945 until 2016, the longest drought of any MLB club.
New York Yankees dynasty (1920–1964)
The New York Yankees purchased Babe Ruth's contract 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. The 1921 World Series was the first to be broadcast on radio. Over a period of 45 years from 1920 to 1964, the Yankees played in 29 World Series championships, winning 20. The team's dynasty reached its apex between 1949 and 1964 when the Yankees reached the World Series 14 times in 16 years, helped by an agreement with the Kansas City Athletics, after that team moved from Philadelphia during 1954–1955 offseason, whereby the teams made several deals advantageous to the Yankees, until ended by new Athletics' owner Charles O. Finley.
During that span, the Yankees played in all World Series except 1954 and 1959, winning nine of them. From 1949 to 1953, the Yankees won the World Series five years in a row; from 1936 to 1939 the Yankees won four World Series Championships in a row. There are only two other occasions when a team has won at least three consecutive World Series: 1972 to 1974 by the Oakland Athletics, and 1998 to 2000 by the Yankees.
1947–1964: New York City teams dominate World Series play
In an 18-year span from 1947 to 1964, except for 1948 and 1959, the World Series was played in New York City, featuring at least one of the three teams located in New York at the time. The Dodgers and Giants moved to California after the 1957 season, leaving the Yankees as the lone team in the city until the Mets were enfranchised in 1962. In 1947, 1949, 1951, 1952, 1953, 1955, and 1956, both teams in the World Series were from New York, with the Yankees playing against either the Dodgers or Giants.
1958: The Dodgers and Giants move west
In 1958, the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants took their long-time rivalry to the west coast, moving to Los Angeles and San Francisco, respectively, bringing Major League Baseball west of St. Louis and Kansas City.
The Dodgers were the first of the two clubs to contest a World Series on the west coast, defeating the Chicago White Sox in 1959. The 1962 Giants made the first California World Series appearance of that franchise, losing to the Yankees. The Dodgers made three World Series appearances in the 1960s: a 1963 win over the Yankees, a 1965 win over the Minnesota Twins and a 1966 loss to the Baltimore Orioles.
1969: League Championship Series
Prior to 1969, the National League and the American League each crowned its champion (the "pennant winner") based on the best win–loss record at the end of the regular season.
A structured playoff series began in 1969 when both the National and American Leagues were reorganized into two divisions each, East and West. The two division winners within each league played each other in a best-of-five League Championship Series to determine who would advance to the World Series. In 1985, the format changed to best-of-seven.
The National League Championship Series (NLCS) and American League Championship Series (ALCS), since the expansion to best-of-seven, are always played in a 2–3–2 format: Games 1, 2, 6, and 7 are played in the stadium of the team that has home-field advantage, and Games 3, 4, and 5 are played in the stadium of the team that does not.
1970s
1971: World Series at night
Night games were played in the major leagues beginning with the Cincinnati Reds in 1935, but the World Series remained a strictly daytime event for years thereafter. In the fifth and final game of the 1949 World Series, a Series game was finished under the lights for the first time due to encroaching darkness in the ninth inning. The first scheduled night World Series game was Game 4 of the 1971 World Series at Three Rivers Stadium.
Afterward, World Series games were frequently 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, indoors at the Metrodome in Minnesota. The last World Series played outdoors during the day was the final game of the 1984 series in Detroit's Tiger Stadium. The start time of this game (Game 5) was 4:45 PM, making it the last outdoor World Series game to be started during daylight hours, but the game concluded after sunset and the final innings were technically played at night. The last World Series game to be played outdoors entirely during daylight hours was the previous day's game, Game 4, which started at 1:45 PM.
1972–1978: Threepeat, repeats, and Fisk's home run
During this seven-year period, only three teams won the World Series: the Oakland Athletics from 1972 to 1974, Cincinnati Reds in 1975 and 1976, and New York Yankees in 1977 and 1978. This is the only time in World Series history in which three teams have won consecutive series in succession. This period was book-ended by World Championships for the Pittsburgh Pirates, in 1971 and 1979, who defeated the Baltimore Orioles both times.
The less successful side during this era also featured repeats. The Orioles themselves made multiple World Series appearances, including three consecutive: 1969, losing to the "amazing" seven-year-old franchise New York Mets, 1970, beating the Reds in their first World Series appearance of the decade, and their 1971 and 1979 defeats by Pittsburgh. The Los Angeles Dodgers lost to Oakland in 1974, and made back-to-back World Series appearances in 1977 and 1978, both losses to the Yankees.
Game 6 of the 1975 World Series is regarded by most as one of the greatest World Series games ever played. It found the Boston Red Sox winning in the 12th inning in Fenway Park, defeating the Cincinnati Reds to force a seventh and deciding game, which Cincinnati won. Game 6 is best remembered for its exciting lead changes, nail-biting turns of events, and a game-winning walk-off home run by Carlton Fisk, resulting in a 7–6 Red Sox victory.
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 (DH) rule, allowing its teams to use another hitter to bat in place of the (usually) weak-hitting pitcher. The National League did not adopt the DH rule. This presented a problem for the World Series, whose two contestants would now be playing their regular-season games under different rules. From 1973 to 1975, the World Series did not include a DH.
Starting in 1976, the DH rule was used in the World Series held in even-numbered years. The Cincinnati Reds swept the 1976 Series in four games, using the same nine-man lineup in each contest. Dan Driessen was the Reds' DH during the series, thereby becoming the National League's first designated hitter. From 1986 to 2019, and in 2021, the DH was used only in World Series games played at American League parks, and pitchers were required to bat in games played at National League parks. In 2020, and starting in 2022, the DH rule was used in all World Series games, regardless of home team.
1980s
1984: Anderson becomes first to win in both leagues
The 1984 Detroit Tigers gained distinction as just the third team in major league history (after the 1927 New York Yankees and 1955 Brooklyn Dodgers) to lead a season wire-to-wire, from opening day through their World Series victory. In the process, Tigers skipper Sparky Anderson became the first manager to win a World Series title in both leagues, having previously won in 1975 and 1976 with the Cincinnati Reds.
1985: Umpiring controversy
The 1985 Kansas City Royals won the series four games to three over the St. Louis Cardinals. The key turning point of the series was a Kansas City win in Game Six aided by a controversial call by Don Denkinger at first base. Kansas City later won Game Seven 11–0 to take the series.
1986: Mets Game 6 comeback
The series is best remembered for its Game 6, which saw the Mets rally from a two-run deficit in the bottom of the 10th inning, despite having two outs and no one on base. The Red Sox, who held a 3–2 series lead, were twice one strike away from securing the championship, but failed to close out the inning as the Mets tie on a Bob Stanley wild pitch & win off an error by Boston first baseman Bill Buckner. Due to the Mets claiming the series in Game 7, the Game 6 collapse entered baseball lore as part of the Curse of the Bambino superstition used to explain the Red Sox's championship drought after the 1918 World Series.