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No other sports does it. That their big tournament is THE WORLD SERIES when all teams are US or at least North American based.

But in the MLB, its the world series. Even if they are not the only baseball league in the world. And all teams except one are US based.

So what is the logic of calling it the 'World Series'? Is there an excuse somewhere, or is it just because the MLB wants to sound important?

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It's actually not named that way to suggest the best team in the world. Back in the day, a newspaper called the "World" used to sponsor the championship series, and so it was dubbed "The World Series" and the name stuck.

EDIT: Upon doing more research, the series being named after the newspaper is disputed. In the late 1800s number of teams from the NL and AA (American Association) used to meet to figure out the best team in baseball. But there was no proper structure to it as we see today. So in early 1900s a new series was proposed to settle which team was the best and promoted as "The Championship of the United States" or "World's Championship Series" and so shortened to "World Series"

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  • Ah so its kind of like why it's the Stanley Cup because it was Lord Stanley that 'sponsored' the first few times where the trophy was given. Its just that in this case, the name of the sponsor was 'The World'. TIL!
    – Fredy31
    Jul 19, 2021 at 15:21
  • Yup. But apparently that's disputed, so added the Edit section above. Please see revised answer
    – alamoot
    Jul 19, 2021 at 15:31
  • One minor correction: the late 1800s saw a championship series between the NL and the AA (American Association); the AL would not come into existence until 1901. The NL and AA merged in 1892, but the NL dropped four of the AA teams in 1899.
    – chepner
    Jul 19, 2021 at 18:23
  • @chepner you are correct, I've updated the post
    – alamoot
    Jul 19, 2021 at 18:25

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