Regional Postseason Series

In the first half of the 20th Century, there were 32 "City Series" sanctioned by major league baseball that followed the format of the World Series. Like the World Series, major league baseball received a portion of the gate, the winning players received more than the losing players, and the scheduled games after the series was decided were not played. 75% of these series were between the Chicago teams. The Chicago series was the only one to be played after World War I. A few of the series were not between teams sharing the same city. There were three Ohio series between Cincinnati and Cleveland and lone series between Pittsburgh and Cleveland and the Red Sox and Giants.

Michael Cantor has worked for over 15 years putting together the most detailed information about these series and has generously provided his work to Retrosheet. We are pleased to make available to the baseball community the fruits of his efforts. His article about the history of these series, which is linked below, includes a listing of ones not played under the auspices of the major leagues from 1903-16 and references to other sources about these series. Mike has provided play-by-play accounts of more than 80% of the 190 games played in these series. We have made Retrosheet game account pages from them, and they are linked to the series summary pages. We have posted deduced accounts or box scores for the other games. In many cases, his research resulted in corrections of errors in the accounts he found in newspapers.

Cantor's History Article

Presentation at SABR 40

Fred Ivor-Campbell wrote an article "City Series" for the first edition of Total Baseball, which was published in 1989. The article was not in any later editions. It covers series as far back as 1882 and provides a brief synopsis of each one. All of the ones listed below except for the 1909 Red Sox-Giants and 1913 Indians-Pirates are in the article. Mike Cantor has written stories about those two series, which are linked to the series summaries. Retrosheet has been given permission to reproduce Fred's article.

Ivor-Campbell's City Series Article

Eric Weiss has put together the rosters for the series below except for the 1917 St. Louis series. As a bonus the 1912 Philadelphia series, which was not officially sanctioned, is also included. These rosters support research into the series by listing all players eligible for each series, whether or not they actually played in the series, and in some cases, did not appear for the team during the regular season. . Download the rosters.

Additions, Changes, Corrections: Although we took great care to make the information shown as accurate as we could, for several reasons, most significantly that all of the games were played more than two-thirds of a century ago, there likely are some mistakes. We will show any changes here. If you discover anything you think we should know about, please send an e-mail to Tom Thress at the e-mail listed below.

(1/6/2010): Correction to Cleveland at Pittsburgh, 10/13/1913, bottom of the third.
(5/5/2010): Corrections to the bottom of the ninth in Cubs at White Sox, 10/13/1925 and White Sox at Cubs, 10/3/1926.
(6/6/2010): Extensive revisions to 1905 Chicago series based on continuing research. Box score for game 5 posted.
(1/10/2011): Box scores for 1917 St. Louis series (no play-by-plays for this seven game series) posted.
(2/27/2011): Additions for 1911 Ohio series: play-by-play for game 2, boxes for games 3, 5, and 6.
(4/17/2011): Several revisions in games 2-5 of 1914 New York Series.
(11/5/2011): Deduced play-by-plays for Chicago in 1921-(game 4), 1924-5, 1925-4, 1928-5.
(11/23/2011): Deduced play-by-plays for Chicago games 1931-5, 1933-4, 1936-4.
(12/4/2011): Deduced play-by-plays for games 1, 5, 6, and 7 of the 1939 Chicago series.
(12/11/2011): Deduced play-by-plays for games 3, 5, and 6 of the 1940 Chicago series.
(12/18/2011): Deduced play-by-plays for games 2, 3, and 4 of the 1941 Chicago series.
(12/30/2011): Full play-by-play for 1942-1 and seven plus innings of 1942-2. Other four games of the series have deduced game accounts. All games in the 32 series now have boxes and the vast majority have play-by-plays, some deduced.
(4/17/2013): Corrections and additional details to Cubs at White Sox, 10/15/1911
(11/26/2018): Newspaper play-by-play for game 4 of 1925 Chicago series: Cubs at White Sox, 10/11/1925
(5/25/2020): Out plays and other details for 8th and 9th inning of game 2 of 1942 Chicago series: White Sox at Cubs, 10/01/1942
(6/3/2020): Corrections to losing pitchers shown in boxes of 1924 Chicago Game 1 and 1925 Chicago Game 6
(6/9/2020): Corrections to losing pitcher shown in boxes of 1937 Chicago Game 5
(7/15/2020): Full play-by-play for 1939 Chicago game 1: Cubs at White Sox, 10/04/1939

Series Played: Click on descriptions for line scores of the games and additional links
Team nicknames are the most recent ones, not necessarily the ones used at the time of the series

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