The modern World Series, the current championship series of Major League Baseball, began in 1903, and was established as an annual event in 1905. Before the formation of the American Association, there were no playoff rounds—all championships went to the team with the best record at the end of the season. In the initial season of the National League in 1876, there was controversy as to which team was the champion: the Chicago White Stockings, who had the best overall record, or the St. Louis Brown Stockings, who were the only team to have a winning record against every other franchise in the league. The teams agreed to play a five-game "Championship of the West" series, won by St. Louis, 4 games to 1. Beginning in 1884, the championship series between the National League and the American Association were promoted and referred to as the "World's Championship Series", or "World's Series" for short; however, they are not officially recognized by Major League Baseball as part of World Series history. Though early publications, such as Ernest Lanigan's Baseball Cyclopedia and Turkin and Thompson's Encyclopedia of Baseball, listed the 19th-century games on an equal basis with those of the 20th century, Sporting News publications about the World Series, which began in the 1920s, ignored the 19th-century games, as did most publications about the Series after 1960. Major League Baseball, in general, regards 19th-century events as a prologue to the modern era of baseball, which is defined by the emergence of the two present major leagues. In the second year of the WCS, a dispute in the 1885 series concerned Game 2, which was forfeited by the St. Louis Browns when they pulled their team off the field protesting an umpiring decision. The managers, Cap Anson and Charles Comiskey, initially agreed to disregard the game. When St. Louis won the final game and an apparent 3-2 series championship, Chicago owner Albert Spalding overruled his manager and declared that he wanted the forfeit counted. The result of a tied WCS was that neither team got the prize money that had been posted by the owners before the series. Following the collapse of the AA in 1891, four of its clubs were admitted to the National League. The league championship was awarded in 1892 by a playoff between half-season champions. This scheme was abandoned after one season. Beginning in 1893—and continuing until divisional play was introduced in 1969—the pennant was awarded to the first-place club in the standings at the end of the season. For four seasons, the pennant winner played the runners-up in the postseason championship series called the Temple Cup. A second attempt at this format was the Chronicle-Telegraph Cup series in 1900.
Champions before 1876
The only championship teams to last beyond 1876 were the Chicago White Stockings and the Boston Red Stockings. The Philadelphia Athletics were not the same team as either the Philadelphia Athletics of 1882–1890, or the former Philadelphia Athletics who now play in Oakland, California. Nor were the Brooklyn Atlantics of 1855 to circa 1882 the same team as the Brooklyn Atlantics founded in 1883-1884, to become later known successively as the Brooklyn Grays, Brooklyn Bridegrooms, Brooklyn Grooms, Brooklyn Trolley Dodgers, Brooklyn Superbas, Brooklyn Robins, Brooklyn Dodgers, and Los Angeles Dodgers.
Champions from 1876 to 1904
Notes:
After 1871, a team's name links to the team's season that year.
Italicized names refer to years when two teams and their managers could claim equal status as champion, either because they did not play a series against each other, or because they tied such a series.
A third bracketed and asterisked number in a series score, for example " 3-3-* ", refers to a tied game.
