Since, as I mentioned yesterday, this is the first meeting in the World Series of two of the original 16 MLB teams, and since one of those teams, the Giants of New York and then San Francisco, have been to the World Series 20 times now, I was curious if they'd played every one of the eight original American League teams. The odds semed favorable. The results:

Nope. Seven of the eight, plus two expansion teams (Angels, Rangers). The original AL team missing to complete the set? It's in the COMMENTS field below.

The Gints, as they used to be called, are 1-0 against Texas, 1-0 against Cleveland, 0-1 against both the Red Sox and the White Sox and the Angels, 1-1 against the Senators/Twins, 1-4 against the Athletics of Philly and Oakland, their big rival in the early days of modern baseball, and a sad, sad, 2-5 against the Yankees. McGraw's Giants won the first two meetings; nothing but bad since. 

Over in the A.L., this is the Tigers' 11th trip to the World Series. Its history:

They're 2-2 against the Cubs, 1-2 against the Cardinals, 0-1 against the Pirates, 0-1 against the Reds (the telescopic-site Series), and 1-0 against the Padres. Missing from the original eight National League teams? The Dodgers, Braves and Phillies.

So has any team played all eight original teams from the other league in the World Series? Yep, and big surprise. The Yankees, with their 40 pennants, first played the Giants in 1921, the Cards in 1926, the Pirates in 1927, the Cubs (Ruth's called shot) in 1932. In 1939 they played the Reds. Two years later, they played the Dodgers for the first time, a team they would play a total of 11 times. In 1950, they met the Phillies. Seven years later, they completed the set by playing the Braves, now of Milwaukee.

Among expansion teams the Yankees have played the Padres, Mets, Diamondbacks and Marlins. So the only NL teams—expansion included—that they haven't faced in the World Series are anomalies, really: the Brewers, who came over from the AL in the 1990s; the Astros, who have been once and are moving to the AL next year; the Rockies, who are a recent 1990s franchise who have been once; and the Expos/Nationals, who have never been. Hard to complete the entire set with those odds.

Interestingly, the Red Sox, with a mere 11 pennants, almost have a complete original set as well: They played the Pirates in 1903, the Giants in 1912, the Phillies (the tough get, since they barely went) in 1915, the Robins/Dodgers in 1916, and the Cubs (another rare get) in 1918. Then they played the Cards in 1946 and 1967 and the Reds in 1975. That was seven. They're only missing the Braves, their original crosstown foe. Those old Beaneaters.

Tonight, we play ball. Go get 'em, Tigers. Trivia answer in the comments field.

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