Why is America's baseball thingy called the World Series?

[p_p_man]

It's nothing of the sort!

Apart from America it's a game played by a few undistinguished countries scattered around the world whose only claim to anything "world" is their remoteness from each other on the same planet.

Now the FIFA 2002 World Soccer Cup lives up to it's name...

 

[SleepingWarrior]

Starting to scrape the bottom of the gripes against America barrel eh p_p_man.

 

[Private Vasquez]

Back in the day, The New York World newspaper in (you guessed it) New York covered the games and somehow, via that newspaper, it became known as The World Series.

I don't recall dates or other important things like that.

 

[cybergirly]

Beats me
*shruggs* but I don't understand why they play 7 games. They should just play one game, who ever wins, wins.

 

[Spinaroonie]

Cos we have all of the pros and they come from Japan, Puerto Rico, Guam, Samoa, Cuba, etc.

Everywhere except the US (Oh well...Rusty Greer.. but that's TX, not the US )

 

[SleepingWarrior]

Beats me
*shruggs* but I don't understand why they play 7 games. They should just play one game, who ever wins, wins.

If they only played 1 game then it wouldn't be a series would it.

 

[Juspar Emvan]

Beats me
*shruggs* but I don't understand why they play 7 games. They should just play one game, who ever wins, wins.

I can see that one can be harsh. But three, or maybe five? Seven is just dumb. Mind you, if the games were more physically demanding, like Rugby . . .

 

[p_p_man]

Back in the day, The New York World newspaper in (you guessed it) New York covered the games and somehow, via that newspaper, it became known as The World Series.

I don't recall dates or other important things like that.

Thank you!

This was meant to be a jocular, friendly rivalry thread but you have answered a question which has puzzled many a non-American for years.

So it all come from a newspaper name.

 

[Shaq]

Cos we have all of the pros and they come from Japan, Puerto Rico, Guam, Samoa, Cuba, etc.

Everywhere except the US (Oh well...Rusty Greer.. but that's TX, not the US )

That's actually a good explanation...

I was just going to say cause Canada could play in it too...but his was better...

 

[Azwed]

Its best 5 out of 7 so it could end in 5 games.

 

[cybergirly]

I can see that one can be harsh. But three, or maybe five? Seven is just dumb. Mind you, if the games were more physically demanding, like Rugby . . .

Exactly, 3 would be fine.
It's all about the money, this way they can sell tickets to at least 4 games. And build up the merchandising frenzy.
Seven is dumb.

 

[dreamer]

Because for several decades the only place Baseball was played was in the US.

It truly WAS a WORLD series. It just so happened that all the teams in the world were from the US.

 

[dreamer]

Back in the day, The New York World newspaper in (you guessed it) New York covered the games and somehow, via that newspaper, it became known as The World Series.

I don't recall dates or other important things like that.

AHHH, yeah I forgot about that. Hehe, yeah what he said.

 

[Private Vasquez]

she

 

[Wrong Element]

You couldn't just have a one-game or even a three-game World Series, because of the special nature of baseball. It's more common for a bad team to beat a good team in baseball than in any other team sport. One game between two good teams doesn't say anything meaningful about who is better, as it generally does in American football and soccer.

P_P_Man, you believe that Japan and nearly every country in Latin America are "undistinguished"?

As for the World Cup, anything France can win is by definition insignificant

 

[QuickDuck]

there is also a couple of Aussies playing baseball in the US... i think

Its kind of like the Rugby League World Cup... aside from England, New Zealand (but they mostly play Union) and Australia, VERY few other countries play it and most of them, not at a level upto standard.

Kind of silly to call it a world cup

/wave
QuickDuck

 

[p_p_man]

P_P_Man, you believe that Japan and nearly every country in Latin America are "undistinguished"?

Only the baseball playing side of them...

 

[freakygirl]

First off.. Private Vasquez is incorrect. Her version is an Urban Legend. *post cut and pasted from Snopes.com



For nearly a century now, baseball's annual championship, the World Series, has been an essential American ritual. The modern World Series began in 1903, when the National League's pennant-winning Pittsburgh Pirates agreed to a best-of-nine playoff series against the Boston Pilgrims, champions of the upstart American League (which had made the jump from minor league to major league just two years earlier). After a one-year interruption in 1904 (when the New York Giants refused to meet the Boston Pilgrims because -- depending upon which story you believe -- the Giants' owner refused to allow his team to compete against the "inferior" American League or the Giants' manager hated the American League's president), the series resumed as a best-of-seven affair in 1905 and has been waged every autumn since (save for 1994, when it was cancelled due to a players' strike).

The concept of a post-season championship series evolved long before 1903, however. Teams engaged in exhibitions and unofficial regional playoffs after the end of regular-season play since the earliest days of professional baseball, and after 1882 season the National League's first-place Chicago team played a pair of games against Cincinnati, the champions of the newly-formed American Association. These games were primarily exhibition contests (because the National League had yet to acknowledge the legitimacy of the American Association), but every year from 1884 through 1890 the two leagues' champions met in post-season series of varying lengths (an event that was known, among other names, as the "world series"). The 1891 playoff was cancelled due to interleague squabbling, and any hopes for its resurrection were dashed when the American Association folded before the 1892 season. The National League expanded from eight teams to twelve in 1892 by absorbing four of the entries from the failed American Association, and a post-season championship was created by dividing the season into halves and pitting the winners of the two halves against each other.

The split-season format proved unpopular and therefore didn't come off in 1893, so an entrepreneur from Pittsburgh named William C. Temple promoted a new post-season scheme the next year by offering to award an ornate $800 cup to the winner of a best-of-seven series between the National League's first- and second-place finishers. The "Temple Cup" championship series, as it became known, was held for the four years between 1894 and 1897, after which a lack of fan interest resulted in its termination and the return of the cup to its donor.

Save for a brief series between the National League's pennant-winning Brooklyn Superbas and the runner-up Pittsburgh Pirates after the 1900 season (the winner receiving a silver cup donated by the Pittsburgh Chronicle-Telegraph), post-season play did not resume until the modern World Series matching American and National league champions against each other began in 1903. Somewhere along the way (the earliest citing I've found so far is from 1991), people have picked up the notion that the fall classic, baseball's World Series, is so named not because the victors are considered the world's champions, but because the contest was originally sponsored by the New York World newspaper. Perhaps this belief springs from today's hyper-commercial sporting climate, in which nearly all athletic championships and sports stadiums are named for corporate sponsors, or perhaps it springs from the incongruity of the winners of a contest featuring only teams from North America being declared "world champions," but so prevalent is this erroneous belief that it is now regularly cited as a "fact," despite a complete lack of any supporting evidence.

The New York World was established in 1860, just before the Civil War, and it fared poorly throughout the 1870s before being bought up by Joseph Pulitzer in 1883. Over the next half-century, the World was renowned for everything from its "yellow journalism" to its debut of the crossword puzzle; in 1930 it was sold and merged with the Evening Telegram to become the New York World-Telegram. The New York World never had anything to do with the World Series, however, other than being one of the many newspapers to report the results. The modern World Series (like its predecessor series waged between National League and American Association teams from 1884-1890) was so named not because of any affiliation with a corporate sponsor, but because the winner was considered the "world's champion" -- the title was therefore simply a shortened form of the phrase "world's championship series."

Negative evidence is easily uncovered by reading accounts of the first few World Series in the major newspapers of the era. The first several contests between the two league champions were reported under a variety of titles -- "championship series," "world championship series," "world's series" -- before eventually becoming standardized in name as the "World Series." If the name had derived from the New York World's sponsorship, it would have been nothing but the "World Series" from the very beginning (and as far back as 1884). If you don't believe us, baseball's Hall of Fame also said as much:


. . . others have asked that question of the staff at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y. in recent weeks. "There's no evidence suggesting it was ever sponsored by the New York World newspaper," said Hall of Fame researcher Eric Enders. When the World Series between the National and American leagues began in 1903, the owners borrowed the name from the world championship series held in the 1880s between the National League and the American Association. Enders concludes the name didn't originate from the name of the long-defunct newspaper. It sounds like an urban myth.

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I remember years ago.. My Grandfather explaining to me that it was named the World Series because the National and the American Leagues played against each other.

What I don't understand is why some are American League.. and some are National League when most of them (Toronto Blue Jays aren't) are based in the United States (America)

Can anyone answer that question for me? Please

 

[Private Vasquez]

Or that.
I was learned that the World was one of the only papers covering the games, so folks started calling it that.

The leagues were divided, I think, so that teams couldn't steal players from other teams...or something like that. American and National are just names given to the leagues. Presently, the leagues have some rules that differ.

Mostly, the leagues were set up for post-season reasons.

 

[Purple Haze]

Freakygurl33 is right,

except in the early years it was called the "World's Series" and still is by some today. It was the original Superbowl. Their rules were identical, two leagues, two champions, nine games. In the afternoon....

 

[Problem Child]

I didn't read that freakygurl post cuz it was too long and I have a lazy eye.

 

[Private Vasquez]

What she said was:

First off.. Private Vasquez is incorrect. Her version is an Urban Legend. *post cut and pasted from Snopes.com



For nearly a century now, baseball's annual championship, the World Series, has been an essential American ritual. The modern World Series began in 1903, when the National League's pennant-winning Pittsburgh Pirates agreed to a best-of-nine playoff series against the Boston Pilgrims, champions of the upstart American League (which had made the jump from minor league to major league just two years earlier). After a one-year interruption in 1904 (when the New York Giants refused to meet the Boston Pilgrims because -- depending upon which story you believe -- the Giants' owner refused to allow his team to compete against the "inferior" American League or the Giants' manager hated the American League's president), the series resumed as a best-of-seven affair in 1905 and has been waged every autumn since (save for 1994, when it was cancelled due to a players' strike).

The concept of a post-season championship series evolved long before 1903, however. Teams engaged in exhibitions and unofficial regional playoffs after the end of regular-season play since the earliest days of professional baseball, and after 1882 season the National League's first-place Chicago team played a pair of games against Cincinnati, the champions of the newly-formed American Association. These games were primarily exhibition contests (because the National League had yet to acknowledge the legitimacy of the American Association), but every year from 1884 through 1890 the two leagues' champions met in post-season series of varying lengths (an event that was known, among other names, as the "world series"). The 1891 playoff was cancelled due to interleague squabbling, and any hopes for its resurrection were dashed when the American Association folded before the 1892 season. The National League expanded from eight teams to twelve in 1892 by absorbing four of the entries from the failed American Association, and a post-season championship was created by dividing the season into halves and pitting the winners of the two halves against each other.

The split-season format proved unpopular and therefore didn't come off in 1893, so an entrepreneur from Pittsburgh named William C. Temple promoted a new post-season scheme the next year by offering to award an ornate $800 cup to the winner of a best-of-seven series between the National League's first- and second-place finishers. The "Temple Cup" championship series, as it became known, was held for the four years between 1894 and 1897, after which a lack of fan interest resulted in its termination and the return of the cup to its donor.

Save for a brief series between the National League's pennant-winning Brooklyn Superbas and the runner-up Pittsburgh Pirates after the 1900 season (the winner receiving a silver cup donated by the Pittsburgh Chronicle-Telegraph), post-season play did not resume until the modern World Series matching American and National league champions against each other began in 1903. Somewhere along the way (the earliest citing I've found so far is from 1991), people have picked up the notion that the fall classic, baseball's World Series, is so named not because the victors are considered the world's champions, but because the contest was originally sponsored by the New York World newspaper. Perhaps this belief springs from today's hyper-commercial sporting climate, in which nearly all athletic championships and sports stadiums are named for corporate sponsors, or perhaps it springs from the incongruity of the winners of a contest featuring only teams from North America being declared "world champions," but so prevalent is this erroneous belief that it is now regularly cited as a "fact," despite a complete lack of any supporting evidence.

The New York World was established in 1860, just before the Civil War, and it fared poorly throughout the 1870s before being bought up by Joseph Pulitzer in 1883. Over the next half-century, the World was renowned for everything from its "yellow journalism" to its debut of the crossword puzzle; in 1930 it was sold and merged with the Evening Telegram to become the New York World-Telegram. The New York World never had anything to do with the World Series, however, other than being one of the many newspapers to report the results. The modern World Series (like its predecessor series waged between National League and American Association teams from 1884-1890) was so named not because of any affiliation with a corporate sponsor, but because the winner was considered the "world's champion" -- the title was therefore simply a shortened form of the phrase "world's championship series."

Negative evidence is easily uncovered by reading accounts of the first few World Series in the major newspapers of the era. The first several contests between the two league champions were reported under a variety of titles -- "championship series," "world championship series," "world's series" -- before eventually becoming standardized in name as the "World Series." If the name had derived from the New York World's sponsorship, it would have been nothing but the "World Series" from the very beginning (and as far back as 1884). If you don't believe us, baseball's Hall of Fame also said as much:


. . . others have asked that question of the staff at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y. in recent weeks. "There's no evidence suggesting it was ever sponsored by the New York World newspaper," said Hall of Fame researcher Eric Enders. When the World Series between the National and American leagues began in 1903, the owners borrowed the name from the world championship series held in the 1880s between the National League and the American Association. Enders concludes the name didn't originate from the name of the long-defunct newspaper. It sounds like an urban myth.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------


I remember years ago.. My Grandfather explaining to me that it was named the World Series because the National and the American Leagues played against each other.

What I don't understand is why some are American League.. and some are National League when most of them (Toronto Blue Jays aren't) are based in the United States (America)

Can anyone answer that question for me? Please

 

[freakygirl]

Purple Haze

Ok, I left out part of the cutting and pasting sue me


Problem Child

You don't have a lazy eye. You are a lazy ass My first intelligent post and you don't read it? See if I ever do that again.



Only thing I can find about the American League vs. The National League question is..

Though the leagues are slightly different, they still play each other. The most important Interleague game is the World Series, but they play each other in regular season interleague games. Because each league has different rules, when teams from different leagues play each other, they play under the rules of the home team. For instance, if a National League team plays at an American League stadium, they play under the rules of the American League. However, if an American League team plays at a National League stadium, they play under the rules of the National League team.
The league is divided into two different conferences (or sub leagues): the National League and the American League. The difference between the two leagues is that the National League has the pitcher bat on offense. In the American League, instead of having the pitcher bat, the teams assign a designated hitter.


Ugh.. that can't be the only reason. Can it?

 

[freakygirl]

I seriously think I have way to much time on my hands.


someone take google search away from me please.

I've become obsessed

 

[Private Vasquez]

One league was sponsored by the New York National. And the other by the Oakland American.