Why is the World Series called the World Series when only American teams participate?

Any baseball fan who has lived, worked, or even traveled abroad will recognize the conversation: why do you call it the World Series when Americans are the only ones in it?

It is a question that is both infuriating and valid, so let’s try to unpack it a bit.

Several assumptions are at play when you consider the question, and nearly all of them are wrong. And that’s perfectly reasonable.

Baseball’s international reach

Let’s deal with the game first, then examine the name. First, we must dispel the idea that baseball is uniquely American. It isn’t.

Baseball’s roots are in medieval England and took hold in North America, but it has an enormous following around the Caribbean and the Far East. Countries like Venezuela, Nicaragua, Panama, Cuba, and the Dominican Republic venerate baseball above all other sports. The same is true of Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea.

Even in countries where baseball is not a favorite sport, it holds excellent regional sway. For example, the coastal areas of Colombia will ignore cycling or soccer in favor of baseball, even as their inland compatriots show little interest in the game. The same holds for Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula and Baja California. Baseball is king in those regions, while the rest of the country remains staunchly soccer-mad.

And while all of these countries have professional leagues, none of them are at the same level as Major League Baseball. So, it contains the best players in the world.

But as valid an argument as that may be, it isn’t the origin of the name.

The New York World

There is another, exceptionally well-traveled story, that the World Series was named after a newspaper, the New York World, which sponsored the early championship games. World was wildly popular in its day, but there is no evidence that they had any part in organizing the matches, much less lending their name to the series.

It would seem that the most plausible story is that the word “World” quite naturally attaches itself to the word “champion.” Much as any boxer who wins any belt at all, no matter how small, is declared “World Champion,” or every competition, from hot dog eating contests to bog snorkeling, claims its winner “World Champion.” Before the invention of FIFA’s World Cup, the British title was referred to as “football world champion” despite only English and Scottish teams competing. It seems that the phrasing, at least in the English language, is inevitable.

Club vs Country

To foreign ears, the “World Series” would seem to suggest a competition between nations. In reality, baseball’s World Series is a competition to find the best professional team.

For someone outside of North America, it is helpful to think of the World Series as homologous to UEFA’s Champions League soccer. Real Madrid may win the title in a given year, even though few, if any, of their players will be from Madrid—or even Spanish.

To pit nation against nation, baseball has had to reinvent a formula laid down by soccer. Before 2008, there was an argument that baseball was an Olympic sport, so a further national competition was unnecessary. After it was dropped from the program, the International Baseball Federation, the World Baseball Softball Confederation, and MLB responded by creating the World Baseball Classic.

Modeled on soccer’s World Cup, the amateur requirement was dropped in favor of appealing to the best players in the world to represent their countries at regular intervals. Conceived as being four-year gaps, there were a few hiccups due to scheduling conflicts and COVID-19, with the fifth installment of the event due to take place in March of 2023. And in case you are wondering, the USA has only won one.

World Baseball Classic winners

So, in summary, if you feel that a competition that uses the word “world” must contain nations, don’t miss the World Baseball Classic in 2026, with sixteen teams qualified by making the top four of their four respective pools during the 2023 tournament. The other four remaining participants will be determined through the qualifying tournament scheduled for 2025.

But if you want to see the best players in the world at every position competing for the highest prize in baseball, tune in to the World Series and watch the New York Yankees and the Los Angeles Dodgers go head-to-head. For a baseball fan, it doesn’t get better than that.