| 1946 World Series | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Dates | October 6–15 | |||||||||
| Venue(s) | Sportsman's Park (St. Louis) Fenway Park (Boston) | |||||||||
| Umpires | Lee Ballanfant (NL), Cal Hubbard (AL), Al Barlick (NL), Charlie Berry (AL) | |||||||||
| Hall of Famers | Umpires: Cal Hubbard Al Barlick Cardinals: Stan Musial Red Schoendienst Enos Slaughter Red Sox: Joe Cronin‡ (mgr.) Bobby Doerr Ted Williams ‡ Elected as a player | |||||||||
| Broadcast | ||||||||||
| Radio | Mutual | |||||||||
| Radio announcers | Jim Britt and Arch McDonald | |||||||||
| Streaming | ||||||||||
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The 1946 World Series was played in October 1946 between the St. Louis Cardinals (representing the National League) and the Boston Red Sox (representing the American League). This was the Red Sox's first appearance in a World Series since their championship of 1918.
In the eighth inning of Game 7, with the score 3–3, the Cardinals' Enos Slaughter opened the inning with a single but two batters failed to advance him. With two outs, Harry Walker walloped a hit over Johnny Pesky's head into left-center field. As Leon Culberson chased it down, Slaughter started his "mad dash". Pesky caught Culberson's throw, turned and—perhaps surprised to see Slaughter headed for the plate—supposedly hesitated just a split second before throwing home. Roy Partee had to take a few steps up the third base line to catch Pesky's toss, but Slaughter was safe without a play at the plate and Walker was credited with an RBI double. The Cardinals won the game and the Series in seven games, giving them their sixth championship.
Boston superstar Ted Williams played in the Series injured and was largely ineffective but refused to use his injury as an excuse. He hit only .200 in 25 at-bats with just one RBI in his only World Series appearance.
As the first World Series to be played after wartime travel restrictions had been lifted, it returned from the 3-4 format to the 2–3–2 format for home teams, which has been used since. It also saw the return of many prominent players from military service.
This was the first of eleven meetings between teams from Boston and St. Louis for a major professional sports championship. This would happen again in the World Series three more times (1967, 2004, 2013), along with four NBA Finals (1957, 1958, 1960, 1961), Super Bowl XXXVI in 2002, and two Stanley Cup Finals (1970, 2019).[1]