Anyone who is a baseball fan enjoys watching the game to cheer on their favorite teams, and it’s just about that time of the year. The World Series is starting off on Wednesday, October 23. Matt Snyder from CBS Sports claims that the St. Louis Cardinals will be facing the Boston Red Sox this year. Personally, I don’t have any particularly strong feelings towards either of the two aforementioned teams, therefore I’m going to present some interesting timeless trivia about the World Series.
What’s in a name?
FIrst off, let’s start with the name. We might be interested to know about a rumor which has been circulating, according to Snopes, since 1991. One of the first sponsors of the World Series was The New York World newspaper. It might seem like a reasonable name, but it’s just not the case. It was, as most rational people would infer, named after the fact that the winners of the World Series are the world champions of baseball.
How the tournament works
The World Series is a competition between the two teams who have won the corresponding National League and American League tournaments. Unlike in Football, there is not one huge and instantaneous competition. It’s the best four games out of seven. Just like striking out, losing three games means you can’t afford any mistakes. However, what many may not know is that it started out as a series of nine games instead of seven, due to a hatred between the New York Giants and the American League – and, by extension, the Boston Red Sox.
Who won the first?
From a nice little bit of trivia available here, you can see that the Red Sox won the first (1903) World Series. If Snyder’s evaluation is correct, and the Red Sox takes the lead, then they are going to get a chance to compete in the World Series yet again.
About the leagues
Next, the World Series was devised in 1903, but everything didn’t form all at once. The World Series is a set of games played between a team from the American League and the National League. These two leagues are actually very far apart in age. The National League was around 25 years before the American League came into existence. After that, it was only a couple of years before the leagues came to an agreement as to how the Series would run.
The first perfect game
Nick Acocella of ESPN.com reports that Don Larsen didn’t have a really exceptional career, but he blew everyone away when he pitched a perfect game — in the World Series. Perfect games are pretty rare in Major League Baseball in general, but the greatest teams who make it to the World Series simply don’t get the chance for that kind of perfection. It generally requires some lack of skill on the batter, no matter how good the pitcher is. Nevertheless, there has never been another perfect game pitched since Don Larsen did it in 1956. Eventually, it’s bound to happen again, but Larsen is long since retired.
Sources
http://www.cbssports.com/mlb/eye-on-baseball/24103210/world-series-schedule-released
http://www.snopes.com/business/names/worldseries.asp
http://atyourlibrary.org/baseball/answers
http://espn.go.com/classic/biography/s/Larsen_Don.html