1903 Boston Americans

 Before there was the Super Bowl, the Stanley Cup, NBA Finals or even the World Cup, there was the World Series. Heck, the World Series predates even the creation of any of the other major sports leagues in America. The National League was long established by the turn of the century as an alternative league was starting up in 1901. There were some finalizing to happen in the next couple season, but by 1903 the "modern era" of baseball had begun.

In this inaugural of baseball as we know it, the Boston Americans were the perfect representatives of the American League. Their name was literally to distinguish themselves from the NL Boston team (the Beaneaters, who would go on to eventually be known as the Atlanta Braves). Player-Manager Jimmy Collins and the Americans coasted to the AL pennant with a 91-47 record, with the 2nd place Philadelphia Athletics 14.5 games back and the last place Washington Senators 47.5 games out.

From the National League, the Pittsburgh Pirates emerged as representatives, with 91 wins of their own. As opposed to how we know it today, the World Series was under a slightly different format in 1903. For starters, it was a best of 9 series, so you need to win 5 games as opposed to 4. The home-away format was different as well, with Boston hosting games 1,2 and 3 in addition to 8 and 9 if necessary while Pittsburgh would host all required games from 4-7.

Game 1 would go the the Pirates 7-3, but Boston would respond with a Bill Dineen Shutout. Pittsburgh would take the next couple games and go up 3-1 in the series. Then the Americans took control, riding the pitching arms of Dineen and Cy Young to flip the script and control the series 4-2 going back to Boston for Game 8. Dineen would pitch another Shutout and Boston would prevail 3-0 to take the first ever World Series.

Young and Dineen combined (because back then "rotations" were for babies and real men pitched until their arm literally fell off) for all of Boston's victories in the series. The team would go on to have more success in the next couple decades with a renaming and the eventual addition of another all time great named Ruth. Unlike other sports leagues to come, the plucky new league didn't roll over for the older guys, helping to quickly legitimize both the American League and the World Series as a whole.

Collins would get the bragging rights of being the first WS winning manager in baseball history, and the future Hall of Famer clearly wasn't too shabby of a hitter either.

1903s premier power hitter was Buck Freeman, who led baseball with 13 Home Runs and 104 RBI.

Patsy led all AL hitters with 107 Runs and 195 Hits. He also led the team with a .331 BA and 35 Stolen Bases.

The remaining regulars in Boston. Criger hit a pathetic .192 in 1903. Clearly that +11 at Catcher is the only reason he had a job. What was wild is of his 61 hits, 10 of them were Triples, meaning that chart is accurate where if he gets the advantage (if ever with just a 7 on-base) then he has excellent odds to wreck havoc on the bases.

This is 1903 baseball, where benches were extremely light even by today's standard where teams go light on position players to cram more bullpen arms on their roster. Boston kept things extremely efficient with one or two utility guys and a rotation of three different backup Catchers.

Dineen was money in the World Series, winning 3 of the 5 games Boston needed to reign supreme, including the series clincher. This in addition to his 21 in the regular season.

Hughes was good enough to tally 20 Wins of his own, but the World Series gave him less success as he lost the only game he pitched in.

The rotation for the Americans was predominantly three arms, but Winter and Gibson would find themselves starting the occasional game each. There was no real concept of a bullpen back then.

You had to figure that baseball's first World Series would have to feature at lease one legend in the mix. Cy Young would be that legend, as he led the league with 28 Wins, 34 Complete Games and 341.2 Innings Pitched in 1903, as well as all of baseball with 7 Shutouts. He also led the pitching staff with 176 Strikeouts.