The World Series
Best of seven between the two league champions, played every year since 1903 except twice.
What it actually is. The World Series is a best of seven between the American League and National League champions. Home field advantage goes to the club with the better regular season record. It has been played every year since 1903 except 1904, when the National League champion refused, and 1994, when a strike ended the season.
What somebody who knows the game gets out of it. The World Series is the most watched sample of baseball anybody sees and it is also the least representative. Seven games is not enough to distinguish two good teams, the rotations are compressed so aces pitch more, bullpens are used more aggressively, and defensive positioning is scouted to a degree the regular season does not allow. The baseball played in it is different, which is part of why postseason performance predicts future postseason performance so poorly.
The numbers worth knowing. Best of seven, 2-3-2 home format. The Yankees have won 27; no other club has more than 11. Roughly one Series in five goes the full seven games.
What people get wrong about it. A World Series win is not a measurement of the best team that season and has never claimed to be. The 116 win 2001 Mariners did not reach it. Treating the trophy as the verdict on a season is the single most common way people mis-read baseball history.
At Little League and travel ball. The Little League World Series is the youth equivalent in name and is structurally very different: a tournament rather than a series, with a bracket, elimination and a single game at the end. The Little League section of this site has every one of them.
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