Once upon a time there were two major baseball leagues: National (NL) and American (AL), each with eight teams. Starting in 1903 (or 1905) they decided to not leave well enough alone with a single league champion decided by 154 regular season games but to add a best of seven (best of nine in 1919, 1920, 1921) series between the two league champions. This became very popular as one might expect.
The 16 teams were geographically concentrated in ten cities with multiple teams in a city being the norm through 1952. The ten teams that did not move are in bold:
New York: Yankees, Giants, Brooklyn Dodgers
Chicago: White Sox, Cubs
Boston: Red Sox, Braves
Philadelphia: Phillies, Athletics
St. Louis: Cardinals, Browns
Detroit, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Washington.
Before there was modern expansion starting in 1961, there was geographic movement:
1952: Braves from Boston to Milwaukee; then to Atlanta in 1966
1954: Browns from St. Louis to Baltimore, renamed Orioles
1955: Athletics from Philadelphia to Kansas City; then to Oakland in 1968
1958: Giants from New York to San Francisco
1958: Dodgers from Brooklyn to Los Angeles.
This was reflected in the World Series:
1957: Milwaukee beat Yankees 4-3
1958: Yankees beat Milwaukee 4-3
1959: Los Angeles beat White Sox 4-2.
Starting in 1957 a travel day was re-inserted before game 3 and after game 5.
Expansion teams since 1961 in World Series. Saturday, October 24, 2015
Modern expansion started in 1961. Fourteen teams were created through 1998 bringing the total to 30. Each of the current five team divisions has at least one. Four in American West, three in National West, East. Two in American East, one in each Central.
1961: AL: Washington Senators (became Texas Rangers in 1972), Los Angeles Angels (became the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim or something)
1962: NL: New York Mets, Houston Colt45s (changed name to Astros in 1965)
1969:
AL: Kansas City Royals, Milwaukee Brewers (first year as Seattle Pilots in 1969)
NL: Montreal Expos (became Washington Nationals in 2005), San Diego Padres
1977: AL: Toronto Blue Jays, Seattle Mariners
1993: NL: Florida Marlins, Colorado Rockies
1998: AL: Tampa Bay Devil Rays, NL: Arizona Diamondbacks
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The World Series bopped along through 1968 as usual. Then with the increase in each league from 10 to 12 teams, each league split into two divisions: east and west. This resulted in a preliminary round between the two division champions in each league: a best of 5 game series through 1984, expanded to a best seven game series in 1985. These were the League Championship Series (LCS). Anomalies and lack of common sense will not be addressed here.
This bopped along 1969 through 1992 by which time the AL had seven teams in its divisions and the NL had six. For 1993 the NL caught up by adding teams in Miami, Florida and Denver, Colorado. The 1993 post season remained the same but the aborted 1994 season (no post season games) had the 14 teams in each of the two leagues arranged in THREE divisions: east, central, west, of these number of teams: 5, 5, 4. There was more anomaly rearranging over the years, including Milwaukee and Houston changing "leagues".
Note that Bud Selig, owner of the Milwaukee Brewers, was acting commissioner 1992-1998. Then actual MLB commissioner 1998-2015. Inducted into the Hall of Fame 2017.
Merger: AL and NL merged years ago. How come no one noticed? Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Note: wikipedia.com indicates that the merger technically happened in 2000, not 1994. See Major League Baseball:
the National League and the American League ... merged in 2000 into a single MLB organization led by the Commissioner of Baseball after 100 years as separate legal entities. (Source): "Year In Review : 2000 National League". www.baseball-almanac.com. Retrieved 2008-09-05
The two leagues were once totally separate rival corporate entities, but that distinction has all but disappeared ...
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Starting in 1995 an additional series was added to what now could only be described as a tournament, with the final series being called the World Series but hardly resembling what had taken place through 1968. The number of teams qualifying in each "league", really a conference, doubled from two to four: the three division champs, plus the second place team with the best record, a wildcard.
Each league had two best of 5 games division series, a 7 game LCS, then onto the finals, aka "World Series".
2012-2020: a second wildcard team was added to each league/conference. These two teams play a one game elimination with the winner going into the division series against the top seeded team, where previously seeding was random.
Cleveland 72 year championship drought. Pittsburgh 41 years. Saturday, November 28, 2020
2014-2020: in those seven seasons, seven different teams have won the tournament. Those are the most recent championship seasons for those seven teams.
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How might a tournament have worked 50 years ago? Was it better then or now? And combining the best of both. Thursday, August 28, 2014
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