#64.4 – The First World Series

That One Sports Show

The first World Series is a bit tricky to track down. There are two major moments in baseball that fans look to, but which is the truest first World Series. Determine for yourself after you have all of the info.

The 1903 World Series was the first modern World Series to be played in Major League Baseball. It matched the Boston Americans of the American League against the Pittsburg Pirates[1] of the National League in a best-of-nine series, with Boston prevailing five games to three, winning the last four.

Refined notes coming soon.

That’s not a misspelling, at a special meeting of the United States Geographic Board Held on July 19, 1911, the previous decision with regard to the spelling of Pittsburgh without the final H was reconsidered and the form below was adopted: Pittsburgh, a city in Pennsylvania (not Pittsburg).

This is the same year where then-Americans pitcher Cy Young went 28-9, the next two best pitchers on the team also had more than 20 wins.

Also featured Honus Wagner in one of his worst appearances in the playoffs due to a thumb and leg injury, which he played through.

Originally was going to be an 11-game series.

Due to overflow crowds at the Exposition Park games in Allegheny City,[3] if a batted ball rolled under a rope in the outfield that held spectators back, a “ground-rule triple” would be scored. Seventeen ground-rule triples were hit in the four games played at the stadium.[4]

The 1884 world series is sometimes credited as the original World Series.

Providence Grays of the National League and the New York Metropolitans of the American Association at the Polo Grounds in New York City.

Would you believe me if I told you only the first game of the series went the full nine innings? Game two was called due to darkness and game three was called due to extreme cold.

October 23, 24, 25 so it was pretty cold.

In this series, both teams put up the prize money out of their own coffers with the winner getting all of it, though later this would change to a split of some sort.

Made possible by the Tripartite Agreement. The what? Okay, the National Agreement. National League, the American Association, and a minor league (the Northwestern League)

This agreement binds the leagues to respect each other’s valid player contracts as well as increasing the size of the reserve list from 6 to 11 players. This leads to relative harmony among the leagues until the Players’ League wars of 1889–1890. No more snatching players up in the night. More agreements would be made later on due to more tomfoolery. http://www.baseball-reference.com/bullpen/National_Agreement

This was at a time when pitchers still were not all allowed to throw overhand. The rules used in this first series could not raise their arm above the belt. In fact, this was one of the only pitching rules at the time. Previous to that even, pitchers only rule was to make sure it was below the hipline and from 45 feet away, which led to pitchers getting a running start. Later the use of a wrist snap to put spin on the ball was put into action.

The Grays won the first two games….but then they continued with the third.