American League Division Series - History

History

The Division Series was implemented in 1981 as a result of a midseason strike, with the first place teams before the strike taking on the teams in first place after the strike. After 1993, it was implemented for good when Major League Baseball restructured each league into three divisions, but their next playing was in 1995 due to the cancellation of the 1994 playoffs. In 1981, a split-season format forced the first ever divisional playoff series, in which the New York Yankees won the Eastern Division series over the Milwaukee Brewers (who were in the American League until 1998) in five games while in the Western Division, the Oakland Athletics swept the Kansas City Royals (the only team with an overall losing record to ever make the postseason). The Yankees have currently played in the most division series in history, with fifteen appearances. The Toronto Blue Jays are the only team to have never played in the ALDS and are the last team to win the World Series under the old 4 division format. The Kansas City Royals have yet to play in the ALDS since it became a postseason fixture in 1995.

Read more about this topic:  American League Division Series

Famous quotes containing the word history:

    To summarize the contentions of this paper then. Firstly, the phrase ‘the meaning of a word’ is a spurious phrase. Secondly and consequently, a re-examination is needed of phrases like the two which I discuss, ‘being a part of the meaning of’ and ‘having the same meaning.’ On these matters, dogmatists require prodding: although history indeed suggests that it may sometimes be better to let sleeping dogmatists lie.
    —J.L. (John Langshaw)

    Jesus Christ belonged to the true race of the prophets. He saw with an open eye the mystery of the soul. Drawn by its severe harmony, ravished with its beauty, he lived in it, and had his being there. Alone in all history he estimated the greatness of man.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    So in accepting the leading of the sentiments, it is not what we believe concerning the immortality of the soul, or the like, but the universal impulse to believe, that is the material circumstance, and is the principal fact in this history of the globe.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)