1944 World Series

The 1944 World Series was an all-St. Louis World Series, matching the St. Louis Cardinals and St. Louis Browns at Sportsman's Park. It marked the third time in World Series history in which both teams had the same home field (the others being the 1921 and 1922 Series, both played at the Polo Grounds in New York City). It would be 76 years before another World Series had all of its games played in a single ballpark: the 2020 Series used Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas as a neutral site due to health concerns regarding the COVID-19 pandemic.^[1]

1944 saw perhaps the nadir of 20th-century baseball, as the long-moribund St. Louis Browns won their only American League pennant. Some of the players were 4-Fs, rejected by the military for physical defects (such as one armed Pete Gray) or limitations that precluded duty.^[2] Others divided their time between factory work in defense industries and baseball, some being able to play ball only on weekends. Some players avoided the draft by chance, despite being physically able to serve. Stan Musial of the Cardinals was one. Musial, enlisting in early 1945, missed one season. He rejoined the Cardinals in 1946.

As both teams called Sportsman's Park home, the traditional 2–3–2 home field assignment was used (instead of the wartime 3–4). The Junior World Series of that same year, partly hosted in Baltimore's converted football stadium, easily outdrew the "real" Series and attracted attention to Baltimore as a potential major league city. Ten years later, the Browns transferred there and became the Orioles. The Orioles would go on to win the 1966 World Series, and become the last of the AL's eight charter franchises to do so. Another all-Missouri World Series was played 41 years later, with the Kansas City Royals defeating the Cardinals in seven games.

The Series was also known as the "Trolley Series," "Streetcar Series," or the "St. Louis Showdown." Coincidentally, this World Series was played the same year Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer released the musical film Meet Me in St. Louis. It remains one of two World Series played that featured two teams from the same city other than New York; the other was the 1906 World Series between the two Chicago teams. The 1989 World Series featured two teams from the San Francisco metropolitan area, but not the same city. It was also the first World Series in which both teams played west of the Mississippi River.

This is the only World Series to date in which neither team was credited with a stolen base.^[3]