INTRODUCTION PLAY BALL The stadium lights are shining The sellout crowd is on its feet The cameras are rolling The umpire calls Play ball into the crisp October air It's the fantasy of every young baseball fan the World Series The chance for a championship and baseball immortality The World Series is called the Fall Classic for a reason Among the major team sports no championship has a more storied past Hockey may have the most famous trophy in the Stanley Cup while the Super Bowl might have the glitz and glamour But when it comes to history and tradition nothing can match the World Series Since it started in 1903 it has provided baseball fans with measures of drama scandal inspiration triumph and heartbreak Opposite page The St Louis Cardinals celebrate their Game 7 World Series win at Busch Stadium in
The crowd rushes onto the field after Game 1 of the 1903 World Series
One WORLD SERIES HISTORY A CENTURY OF THE FALL CLASSIC he World Series may be a spectacle in recent years but it didn t start out that way In 1900 the National League NL was the dominant professional baseball league But not every team was making money So the NL decided to cut back from 12 teams to eight Ban Johnson was the president of a small league called the Western League He saw an opportunity to compete with the NL as a top league Johnson created the American League AL and raided the NL for some of its best players Tensions between the two leagues were high At first NL owners had little interest in a series between the two leagues champions But that changed in 1903 The NL champion Pittsburgh Pirates challenged the AL champs the Boston Americans also called the Pilgrims or Patriots to a series to determine the world championship The clubs agreed to play a best of nine games series And so the World Series was born And what a series it was The Pirates favored to win it all surged to a 3 1 series lead But the Americans stormed back to win the next four games and stun the Pirates If there was any question that the young AL was a match for the established NL it was erased in that first series
