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69 free World Series trivia questions with answers — sports quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
63 free World Series trivia questions with answers. The World Series has been decided 121 times since 1903, and almost every one left behind a story worth a trivia question. This quiz covers the whole run: the best-of-nine beginnings, the 1919 Black Sox, the Yankees' 27 titles, Don Larsen's perfect game, Bill Mazeroski's Game 7 walk-off, the Buckner error, the Cubs finally ending 108 years of waiting, and the Dodgers' back-to-back titles in 2024 and 2025. Easy questions ask which team has won the most championships and what caused the 1994 cancellation; the hard ones want the pitcher who served up Babe Ruth's called shot, the only MVP from a losing team and the first year a Series game was played at night. It works for a bar quiz, an October watch party or settling arguments in the group chat. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the World Series, its champions, its MVP award and the individual series, and each question carries the sentence that backs it up.
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Q 01In which year was the first modern World Series played?
1903
The first modern World Series was played in 1903, two years after the American League declared itself a major league and began raiding National League rosters.
Q 02Which team won the first modern World Series?
Boston Americans
The Boston Americans came back from a 3–1 deficit to win five games to three; the franchise was later renamed the Red Sox.
Q 03The 1904 World Series was never played because the owner of which club refused to take part?
New York Giants
Owner John T. Brush snubbed the upstart American League; the Giants relented and played (and won) in 1905 under new rules.
Q 04What is the prize handed to the World Series winner?
Commissioner's Trophy
The Commissioner's Trophy is made new each year and kept by the champion, unlike hockey's single travelling Stanley Cup; its flags represent the 30 MLB clubs.
Q 05A players' strike wiped out the World Series in which year?
1994
The 1994 strike cancelled the Series for the first time since 1904; the Montreal Expos owned baseball's best record when play stopped in August.
Q 06From 1919 to 1921, the World Series used which format?
Best of nine
The Series went best of nine for those three postwar years; the experiment was then dropped and the best-of-seven format returned in 1922.
Q 07Which team beat the scandal-tainted Chicago White Sox in the 1919 World Series?
Cincinnati Reds
Cincinnati took the series 5–3, and the result has been an asterisk in the record book ever since.
Q 08Which gambler allegedly led the fix of the 1919 World Series?
Arnold Rothstein
Arnold Rothstein, the New York gambler, bankrolled the fix; first baseman Chick Gandil handled the players' side, a story told in the book and film Eight Men Out.
Q 09Who banned the eight 'Black Sox' players from baseball for life?
Kenesaw Mountain Landis
Kenesaw Mountain Landis, the former federal judge who became baseball's first commissioner, banned the eight for life even though a jury had acquitted them.
Q 10The Red Sox drought blamed on the Curse of the Bambino ran from 1918 until which year?
2004
Boston ended the curse in 2004, becoming the only MLB team to win a seven-game series after losing the first three games, then sweeping the World Series.
Q 11Whose error let Mookie Wilson's grounder roll through his legs in Game 6 of the 1986 World Series?
Bill Buckner
Bill Buckner, Boston's first baseman, let the grounder through after a Bob Stanley wild pitch had tied the game; the Mets won Game 6 and then the Series.
Q 12Who was named MVP of the 1986 World Series after leading the Mets with nine hits?
Ray Knight
Knight scored the winning run in Game 6 and homered in Game 7; the Mets then let him leave as a free agent that winter.
Q 13Who pitched the only perfect game in World Series history, in Game 5 of 1956?
Don Larsen
Don Larsen, knocked out in the second inning of Game 2 three days earlier, used a no-windup delivery to retire all 27 Dodgers.
Q 21Whose three home runs in Game 6 of the 1977 World Series earned him the nickname 'Mr. October'?
Reggie Jackson
Reggie Jackson hit three homers on three swings off three different pitchers in Game 6, the first three-homer Series game since Babe Ruth 49 years earlier.
Q 22Babe Ruth's 'called shot' in Game 3 of the 1932 World Series was hit at which ballpark?
Wrigley Field
The called shot came at Wrigley Field in Ruth's tenth and last World Series; Lou Gehrig quietly hit .529 with three homers in the same sweep.
Q 23Which Cubs pitcher threw the pitch that Babe Ruth supposedly called in 1932?
Charlie Root
Q 14Which catcher leaped into the pitcher's arms after the final out of the 1956 perfect game?
Yogi Berra
Yogi Berra jumped into the pitcher's arms after a called third strike on pinch-hitter Dale Mitchell; the photo became one of baseball's most famous images.
Q 15Bill Mazeroski's ninth-inning home run in Game 7 of 1960 won the title for which team?
Pittsburgh Pirates
Mazeroski's blast gave the Pittsburgh Pirates the title in the only World Series Game 7 ever ended by a home run, against a New York team that outscored them 55–27.
Q 16Who is the only World Series MVP ever chosen from the losing team?
Bobby Richardson
Bobby Richardson, the New York second baseman, drove in 12 runs in 1960 even though his team lost Game 7 on a walk-off homer.
Q 17'The Catch' in Game 1 of the 1954 World Series robbed which Cleveland hitter?
Vic Wertz
Vic Wertz's deep drive was caught over the shoulder in the Polo Grounds' vast center field, and Cleveland, winners of 111 games that year, was swept in four.
Q 18In 2017 the World Series MVP award was renamed in honor of which player?
Willie Mays
Willie Mays never won the award himself; it was created in 1955, the year after his famous catch in the 1954 Series.
Q 19The first World Series MVP award, in 1955, went to which Brooklyn pitcher?
Johnny Podres
Podres shut out the Yankees in Game 7 to give Brooklyn its only championship before the move to Los Angeles.
Q 20Which pitcher won the World Series MVP award twice, in 1964 and 1967?
Bob Gibson
Bob Gibson took the award in 1964 and 1967, winning the deciding Game 7 each time; he went 7–2 with a 1.89 ERA in World Series play.
Root insisted to the end of his life that Ruth never pointed at the bleachers, saying he would have knocked him down if he had.
Q 24The 1927 World Series is the only one to end with the winning run scoring on what?
A wild pitch
Game 4 of 1927 ended on a wild pitch by Johnny Miljus that scored Earle Combs, completing a sweep by the 110–44 'Murderers' Row' team that featured Ruth's 60 homers.
Q 25The 1969 'Miracle Mets' upset which 109-win team in five games?
Baltimore Orioles
The Mets, in their eighth season, became the first expansion team to win a division, a pennant and a World Series.
Q 26Who managed the 1969 Miracle Mets?
Gil Hodges
Hodges had been a star first baseman on the Brooklyn Dodgers; he died of a heart attack less than three years later, at 47.
Q 27Which team won five World Series in a row from 1949 to 1953?
New York Yankees
The New York Yankees won five straight from 1949 to 1953 under Casey Stengel, after the same franchise had taken four in a row from 1936 to 1939.
Q 28How many World Series titles had the Yankees won by the end of the 2025 season?
27
The Yankees' 27 titles through 2025 came from 41 World Series appearances, the last championship in 2009 over Philadelphia.
Q 29Which National League club has won the most World Series?
St. Louis Cardinals
The St. Louis Cardinals own 11 titles, the most of any National League club; their first came in 1926 and their 1940s teams added three more.
Q 30Which MLB franchise had never appeared in a World Series through the 2025 season?
Seattle Mariners
Seattle reached the ALCS several times, including after a 116-win season in 2001 and again in 2025, but never the Series.