Game One, 8:07 PM Eastern, AT&T Park, Fox TV.

Verlander versus Zito. Tigers at Giants. The New York Times:

The Giants have reached the World Series 19 times, the Tigers 11 times. Yet this is their first date for the championship.

Eight teams have reached the World Series at least 10 times: the Yankees, the A’s, the Red Sox and the Tigers in the American League, and the Giants, the Cardinals, the Dodgers and the Cubs (really) in the National League. All the possible World Series matchups involving those teams have now taken place, except for one: the Tigers and the Dodgers have still never met in the World Series.

Here’s Roger Angell on teams from the original leagues making it to the Series, published on October 11. If you haven’t read Angell before, here’s his bio along with a list of his baseball essay collections. Read them.

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