In an article in this past Saturday’s New York Times, Tyler Kepner mentioned that Seattle is the only current major league city that has not hosted a World Series game. One might get technical and argue that the city of Miami, where the Marlins now play, has also never hosted a Series game, because all of the Marlins’ World Series home games to date have been played in their old park located in the suburban community of Miami Gardens. Yes, yes, we know what Tyler meant. But the reference sent me back to look at which cities have hosted now many World Series games over the years. The table after the jump lists all 28 cities or towns that have been the location of at least one World Series game. A few of notes before the full table:
— Why are there 28 cities and towns listed, when there are 30 current franchises and we started from the premise that only Seattle should be missing? The state of Minnesota is represented twice here, having hosted World Series games in both Bloomington in 1965 and in Minneapolis in 1987 and 1991. So the Twins make up for Seattle’s absence, which would make 30. But the Mets and Yankees are jointly represented on the list by New York City and the Cubs and White Sox by Chicago, so that gets us down to 28 World Series host cities or towns.
— New York City has, obviously, hosted by far the most World Series games of any city. NYC is divided into five boroughs, four of which have hosted World Series Games: the Bronx (103 games, 66 home team wins), Manhattan (47 games, 22 home team wins), Brooklyn (28 games, 14 home team wins) and Queens (13 games, 8 home team wins).
— All together there have been 634 World Series games. 349 have been won by the home team, 282 by the visiting team and there have been three World Series games that ended in a tie. Home teams thus have a .553 winning percentage in World Series games. That’s a bit higher than the .541 winning percentage that regular season home teams have achieved as a whole in the majors since 1916.
–97 World Series games have been played in which the visiting team and the home team were based in the same city: 44 between the Yankees and Brooklyn Dodgers, 36 between the Yankees and New York Giants, 6 between the Cubs and White Sox, 6 between the Cardinals and St. Louis Browns, and 5 between the Yankees and Mets. All the 1921, 1922 and 1944 World Series games were played in one park, the home field for both teams. For these games, the “home team” as referred to in this post is simply the team that batted last in each inning.
[table id=169 /]
The one New York City borough that has not hosted a World Series game is Staten Island. But the ballpark next to the Staten Island Ferry terminal, in the St. George section of the island, which is the home park of the Staten Island Yankees of the New York-Penn League, is a marvelous place to watch baseball. From the stands you look directly out at New York Harbor and the skyline of Manhattan.
birtelcom: It looks like the home team winning percentage is 349/631 = .553.
From the last two games of the 1950 WS to the first two games of the 1954 WS, 23 consecutive games were played in NYC.
Ah, you’re right. I ran that arithmetic three times and mis-typed it every time. I’ve fixed it in the original post.
no it´s 349/634 = .550
or why would you reduce the total number of games by 3 ties?
Ties don’t generally count when one produces a “winning percentage” number, as suggested by it’s other name, “win-loss percentage”. You could theoretically include ties in the calculation, but then everyone’s winning percentage wouldn’t average out to .500.
I’m pretty sure ties DO count, but as half a win and half a loss. That’s how the NFL does it, anyway. Because a team that goes 15-1 is clearly superior to a team that goes 1-0-15. Obviously, that’s an extreme example, but there were some NFL titles that hinged on whether or not ties counted back in the 30s and 40s.
So 350.5/634=.5528; in other words, more or less the same as what Richard wrote: .553.
@8
As an example, the Tigers in 1953 were 60-94, with 4 tie games, and they are listed in the standings with a winning percentage of 60/154 = .390. Counting ties as half a win and half a loss would yield 62/158 = .392.
Ties do not count in the standings in baseball. Next March, when you read the standings for Spring Training games, you will find the note “Split squad games count in standings. Tie games do not.” Not that spring training standings really mean much….
The NFL changed between 1971 (ties do not count) and 1972 (ties count as half win, half loss). Regular season overtime first appeared in 1974. Currently, the first tiebreaker between two tied NFL teams is “best won-lost-tied percentage in games between the clubs.”
@8
Also the half-win/half-loss concept is not necessary in baseball because tie games are (usually) made up, but not so in football.
The last tie game in the major leagues was between the Astros and Reds in 2005. The Astros finished the season 89-73-1, and the Reds finished 73-89-1. Counting the tie as a half-win, half-loss, Houston would have finished with a Pct. of .546 instead of .549. Similarly, Cincinnati would have finished at .448 instead of .451. Both B-R and Retrosheet give percentages that ignore the tie.
http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/2005/B06300CIN2005.htm
The last line of the play-by-play:
Game called for rain. Will be replayed on 7/2;
The rules providing for stopped games that are tied after 5 innings to be replayed in their entirety on a future date was changed before the 2007 season (see current Rules 4.10 and 4.12 of the official rules).
Since that rule change, stopped games that are tied after 5 innings are instead to be later completed from where they left off (as part of a future sort-of-double-header between the two teams), instead of being counted as ties and played over from scratch.
The only exception is if the stopped game is the last scheduled game between the two teams for the season. In that case the stopped game would simply be left as a tie, unless the game is relevant to a post-season spot, in which case it would be played over in its entirety.
With ubiquitous lights in ballparks, elimination of curfews and improved groundskeeping, ties were becoming quite rare. With the 2007 rule change limiting possible ties to just “last games of the season between the two teams”, they are going to become extremely rare indeed.
I was shocked to see Philadelphia up there… Then I remembered the A’s. They’ve got to be more than half of that 40 right?
Actually, it’s an even split at 20 games each. The A’s played in 8 WS while in Philly, but the Phillies have played in 7.
Back in the nineteen teens, Boston beat Philadelphia in back-to-back series, with the Braves over the A’s one year and the Red Sox over the Phillies the other.
I suppose one could add the Giants and As in 1989 to the list of same city series.
You have New York listed as having hosted 191 games but 103 + 44 + 28 + 13 = 188.
Thanks, fw. In the borough breakdown, I left out three of the World Series games the Yankees played as the home team in the Polo Grounds in Manhattan. The borough breakdown numbers are now fixed in the post.
I wonder how many football fans you could piss off doing something similar for the NFL and claiming playoff games played in New Jersey didn’t count as New York…
The question this year with the Jets and Giants is whether it is actually NFL-level football being played over there.
When the Giants played the Ravens in the Superb Owl after the 2000 NFL season, the bets were placed between the senators from Maryland and the senators from New York. So Schumer and H.Clinton had to read Poe’s “The Raven” somewhere significant that I have forgotten.
I believe it was the steps of the Capitol in Washington. The person I feel saddest about regarding that game is Jim Fassel, whose career would likely have been much different had his team won that one game.
Presumably, the “Superb Owl” is the best owl of all. 😉
Couldn’t resist. I’m guessing that was an autocorrect issue, but it was a funny one.
No idea why “Comments Off” appears on my 30 Under 30 post. Certainly not intentional on my part. For now, you can make comments on that post here, I guess.
Yeah, I wanted to make some RE24 related comments on there. I like seeing that stat thrown around on here. Run production is not given the statistical importance it should be. Just because RBI’s don’t mean much doesn’t mean we should ignore the entire purpose.
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