1909 Major League Baseball season

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, capturing their first championship in franchise history. Going into the season, the defending World Series champions were the Chicago Cubs from the 1908 season.

In the National League, the Chicago Cubs had a record of 104–49 but finished 6 1⁄2 games 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.

Schedule

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 following rule changes:

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.
The American League implemented the following rules:
- 40 minutes before each game for practice was allotted, with the first 30 minutes dedicated to the visiting team, while the last 10 minutes were for the home team.
- Base runners were no longer allowed to advance more than two bases when a ball was thrown into the stands. Previously, there was no limit to how far a runner could go.
- No passes to games were to be issued to members of the visiting team.
- All teams must now maintain a large bulletin board giving the batting order accurately and indicating all changes as they are made.

Teams

An asterisk (*) denotes the departure from a ballpark mid-season.

Standings

Postseason

The postseason began on October 8 and ended on October 16 with the Pittsburgh Pirates defeating the Detroit Tigers in the 1909 World Series in seven games.