How to get to the World Series

NY Yankees celebrate winning the World Series

By BBC Sport Online's Kiran Patel

The New York Yankees and Mets are competing in Major League Baseball's first Subway Series since 1956.

The all-Big Apple affair has already captured the imagination of the American nation, but how exactly did the two New York clubs make it to the World Series?

Baseball novices may have mastered the concepts of the single game, but the complexities of the full season can be baffling.

The MLB world is split into two leagues, the American League (AL) and the National Leagues (NL) and the baseball season climaxes with the best team in each league playing off in the World Series.

Each league however, is split into a further three divisions. These are divided purely by geography and not by the quality of the teams, unlike, for instance, the Nationwide League in English football.

  World Series winner

1999 : NY Yankees

1998 : NY Yankees

1997 : Florida Marlins

1996 : NY Yankees

1995 : Atlanta Braves

1994 : Not held

1993 : Toronto Blue Jays

1992 : Toronto Blue Jays

1991 : Minnesota Twins

1990 : Cincinnati Reds

During the regular season, teams will play all the teams in their league, and recently reintroduced, some of the teams in the other league.

However, they will only be in direct competition with the other teams in their own division.

At the end of the season, the top team in each division - the one with most number of wins - goes onto the play-off with the wild card entrant from their league (the second-place team from all divisions with most wins).

The two winning teams from the play-offs will then go to the League Series to determine who is the winner of the League and progresses to the World Series.

To add to the complexities, the AL and NL have different rules. In NL play pitchers also bat. In the AL, the pitcher does not bat and is replaced by a non-fielding player (the designated hitter).

This problem is quite easily resolved during the World Series and any inter-league games, by adopting the rules of the home side.

So to get to a World Series, you first need to play a total of 162 games against all the teams in your league, plus some in the opposing league.

To progress into the postseason, you must either be the team with most wins in your division, or the highest number of wins for a second place team in your league.

Then you enter a play-off Divisional Series, which is followed by the League Championship Series. Then finally you reach the World Series.

This year's postseason teams.

Team	Wins	Loses
NY Yankees	87	74
Chicago White Sox	95	67
Oakland A's	91	70
Seattle Mariners *	91	71
Atlanta Braves	95	67
NY Mets *	94	68
St Louis Cardinals	95	67
San Francisco Giants	97	65

( * = wildcards)

In the AL, the NY Yankees won the East Division, Chicago White Sox the Central and Oakland As the West, with the Seattle Mariners getting the AL wildcard.

In the NL, the Atlanta Braves won the East Division, St. Louis Cardinals the Central and San Francisco Giants the West, with the NY Mets taking the NL wildcard.

The divisional series saw the Yankees winning the five-gamer against Oakland 3-2. New York then met the Seattle in the AL League Championship, after the Mariners beat the White Sox 3-0.

The Yankees took best-of-seven series and the AL pennant 4-2.

In the National League, the Cardinals beat Atlanta 3-0 and the Mets beat the Giants 3-1. They then met in the NL League Championship Series, with the Mets winning 4-1.