2009 MLB Baseball

Congratulations to the New York Yankees, who beat the Philadelphia Phillies 4 games to 2 to take home their 27th World Series championship!

To get to the World Series, the New York Yankees had to defeat the Minnesota Twins and the Los Angeles Angels, while the Philadelphia Phillies had to beat the Colorado Rockies and the Los Angeles Dodgers. Though the Yankees won, it took them six hard fought games to do so, and everything was still up in the air until the final few moments. If you want to catch all the nail biting action for yourself next year, then check back often for 2010 World Series tickets.

Major League Baseball (more commonly referred to as simply MLB) is the top level of baseball competition in North America, and includes teams from the United States and Canada. It’s split into the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), and both leagues are further divided into three divisions, the East Division, Central Division and West Division.

The MLB baseball season lasts from April (or late March) to October and includes the regular season, the playoffs, and the World Series. Teams play a staggering 162 games during the regular season, making MLB players some of the hardest working in professional sports. The team with the most victories in each division becomes the division winner and earns the right to compete in the playoffs. The team with the best record in each league after the division winners also is included in the playoffs as a wild-card team.

Each league holds a separate playoff, featuring their three division winners and the wild-card team. These teams are paired and face each other in a series of games. The teams that win the most games in a series earn the right to move on to the next round of playoffs. The final series in the league playoffs determines which team wins the pennant, or championship, of their league. The NL and AL pennant winners meet in the World Series, and the winner of this series becomes the major league world champion.

The major leagues also hold an annual competition called the All-Star Game, which matches a team of NL players against a team of AL players. Baseball fans select the starting players in the game. It takes place during the All-Star break, a period in the middle of the regular season during which teams temporarily rest from competition.