World Series

The World Series is the annual championship series of Major League Baseball (MLB), a professional baseball league operating in the United States and Canada, contested between the champion teams of the American League (AL) and the National League (NL). The winning team, determined through a best-of-seven playoff, is declared the champion team of the major leagues (often called "world champions") and awarded the Commissioner's Trophy. The series was first played in 1903, after the American League declared itself the second major-league circuit in the US, to compete with the previously established National League.

The series is traditionally played in October, although due to the expansion of the MLB postseason it has occasionally been contested into November. Because the series is played in the fall (autumn) season in North America, it is often referred to as the Fall Classic.

Qualification to the World Series is determined through a postseason tournament consisting of six teams per league — three teams that won their respective divisions and three teams that achieved the best win-loss record overall but failed to clinch a division title. The team which wins its league's tournament thereby clinches the league pennant and qualifies for the World Series against the other league's pennant winner.

Prior to the AL and NL being split into divisions in 1969, the team with the best regular-season win–loss record in each league clinched that league's pennant and advanced to the World Series, barring a tie necessitating a pennant playoff. Since the introduction of the Major League Baseball postseason playoff format in 1969, each league has conducted a League Championship Series (ALCS and NLCS) preceding the World Series to determine which of its teams will advance, while those series have been preceded in turn by Division Series (ALDS and NLDS) since 1995, and Wild Card games or series in each league since 2012. Until 2002, home-field advantage in the World Series alternated from year to year between the AL and NL. From 2003 to 2016, home-field advantage was given to the league that won that year's All-Star Game. Starting in 2017, home-field advantage was awarded to the league champion team with the better regular-season win–loss record regardless of that team's seeding in earlier postseason rounds (i.e. a Wild Card team in one league will be given home-field advantage over a division winner in the other league if it had the better record or wins the tie-breaking procedure).

The World Series has been contested 122 times through 2026, with the AL team winning 68 times and the NL team 54. The current World Series champions are the Milwaukee Brewers of the National League, who defeated the AL's Tampa Bay Rays in five games.