The 1909 Major League Baseball season began on April 12, 1909. The regular season ended on October 7, with the
Pittsburgh Pirates and
Detroit Tigers as regular season champions of the
National League and
American League, respectively. The postseason began with Game 1 of the sixth modern
World Series on October 8 and ended with Game 7 on October 16. The Pirates defeated the Tigers, four games to three.
In the National League, the
Chicago Cubs had a record of 104–49 but finished 6+1⁄2games behind the Pirates, setting a record for the most wins in an MLB regular season without reaching the postseason, which has only been equaled once, by the
1942 Brooklyn Dodgers, who had a record of 104–50.[1]
Teams
An asterisk (*) denotes the departure from a ballpark mid-season.
The 1909 schedule consisted of 154 games for all teams in the American League and National League, each of which had eight teams. Each team was scheduled to play 22 games against the other seven teams of their respective league. This continued the format put in place for the
1904 season. This format would last until
1919.
Opening Day took place on April 14 with all but the
Pittsburgh Pirates and
St. Louis Cardinals playing. The American League would see its final day of the regular season on October 3, while the National League would see its final day of the regular season was on October 7. The
World Series took place between October 8 and October 16.
Rule changes
The 1909 season saw the creation of a rule that a pitcher must face a minimum of one batter, due to a time-wasting trick to enable a team's intended pitcher to warmup for longer. This had previously occurred when one pitcher initially threw warmup pitches on the mound, before being taken out of the game (before facing a batter) to make way for a relief pitcher who now had extra warmup time.[2]