The History of the Baseball World Series

Unlike most sports, baseball world series is a best-of-seven game event. The winner is the first team to win three games, with ties being decided by the flip of a coin. There are many stories that can be told from a baseball world series, but there are few that are quite as dramatic or iconic as the one that surrounded the 1919 Series between the New York Giants and the Boston Red Sox.

It was a World Series that would go down in history as one of the most controversial in baseball, resulting in an eventual Black Sox scandal. It is also remembered for the incredible play by Giant centerfield Willie Mays in the bottom of the ninth inning of Game 6, when he caught a Bob Stanley wild pitch with his back to the plate and then turned around to stab the ball away at home with two runners on base. This legendary play became part of the Curse of the Bambino superstition and was a major reason why the Red Sox were unable to win a championship until 1908.

The baseball world series is currently played in best-of-seven format, with the champions of the American League and National League playing each other in a Fall Classic. The team with the better regular season record gets to host Games 1 and 2 (and possibly a potential Game 7). This year, it will feature the Dodgers taking on the Yankees, with legends such as Dusty Baker, Fernando Valenzuela and Ron Cey going head-to-head against Aaron Judge, Gary Sanchez and Severino.