The baseball World Series Game has been part of the American experience for over 100 years. Each October the best team from the American League meets the best from the National League in what has come to be known simply as the Fall Classic. In the World Series baseballs best clash to play out what have become some of the most memorable baseball games filled with highlights and folklore.
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The history of the World Series of baseball is, like all matters relating to matters in baseball, long. Since its inception in 1903, the history of the World Series has been uninterrupted except for two years. The first interruption came in its second year. Still working out the kinks of a two league system, then just 3 years old, the owner of the New York Giants from the National League refused to play the Boston Red Sox from the American League because they were from an inferior league. They declared themselves the true champions and refused to hold the series. After some rule changes in the offseason, these differences were resolved and the series began in earnest in 1905. The second interruption came during the 1994 season when a player’s strike wiped out the late season and postseason. The dispute centered on owners’ insistence on a salary cap during contract negotiations. The players’ union balked at the prospect and the players held a strike. Ultimately, the courts ruled in favor of the players and they returned to their teams in the spring of 1995.
One other series left a now infamous mark on the history of the world series of baseball. The World Series between the heavily favored Chicago White Sox and the St. Louis Cardinals would become historic for all the wrong reasons. Gambling reared its ugly head when it was discovered that at least six of the White Sox players agreed to intentionally lose the series and in return would be paid $100,000. The grand jury investigation took place in the following year and, after discovery, the players involved were banned for life. This scandal lead to the creation of a neutral Baseball Commissioner in order to ensure the veracity of the game.
But for the most part the history of the World Series of baseball is filled with individual highlights and glorious team achievements. This is the stage where Babe Ruth pointed to the rafters over center field and on the next pitch delivered an out-of-the-park home run. This is also where Kirk Gibson for the Los Angeles Dodgers came off the bench in the bottom of the ninth inning, after not playing due to injury and illness, to take the sixth pitch over the wall for a walk-off winner that ultimately won the series for them. The baseball world series game also creates legends for failure. The most well-known is Bill Buckner of the Boston Red Sox who had his successful career redefined as the icon for failure in Boston when, in the tenth inning of what should have been the final game of the 1986 World Series against the Mets, he let a ground ball roll under his glove and with it the chances for Boston to break the “Curse of the Bambino.”
As a scoreboards manufacturer for 45 years Electro-Mech still cannot boast that our history is as long as history of the World Series of Baseball but we are proud to develop and stay up-to-date in the ever changing world of team sports for that long.