Baseball's World Series, sometimes referred to as the "Fall Classic," begins Tuesday night with the American League champion Kansas City Royals hosting the National League champion San Francisco Giants.
It's a best-of-seven game series, with the first two in Kansas City before the teams travel west to San Francisco for games three, four and - if necessary - five. If a game six or seven is needed, they would be back in Kansas City.
The Royals get the home field advantage because the American League won this season's All-Star game against the National League.
Kansas City has only been to the World Series twice since it joined Major League Baseball in 1969. The last appearance for the Royals was in 1985, when they won their only championship.
San Francisco has won two recent World Series, in 2010 and 2012, and the Giants have eight current players who were on both of those championship teams.
Both teams finished the regular season as "Wild Card" playoff teams, finishing with one of the two best records after the three divisions winners in each league. So they needed success in three playoff rounds just to reach the World Series.
In one-game playoffs against the other Wild Card teams, Kansas City rallied to beat the Oakland Athletics in 12 innings, 9-8, and San Francisco shut out the Pittsburgh Pirates, 8-0.
Both then upset the teams in their respective leagues with the best regular season records - the Royals swept the Los Angeles Angels in their best-of-five Division Series, 3-0, and the Giants knocked off the Washington Nationals, 3-1. Then in the best-of-seven American League Championship Series, Kansas City swept the Baltimore Orioles, 4-0, and San Francisco beat the St. Louis Cardinals, four games to one.
Now to open the 110th World Series, before their home fans, the Kansas City Royals will take on the San Francisco Giants and try to extend the Major League record eight-game winning streak they set to begin this season's playoffs.
