2002 World Series

The 2002 World Series was the championship series of Major League Baseball (MLB)'s 2002 season. The 98th edition of the World Series, it was a best-of-seven playoff between the American League (AL) champion Anaheim Angels and the National League (NL) champion San Francisco Giants; the Angels defeated the Giants in seven games to win their first, and, to date, only World Series championship. This was the first professional sports championship ever won by an Anaheim-based team. The series was played from October 19–27, 2002, at Pacific Bell Park in San Francisco and Edison International Field of Anaheim in Anaheim. It was also the first World Series since 1997 to not feature the New York Yankees. This was the first World Series since the 1995 inception of the wild card in MLB in which both wild card teams would vie for the title, a phenomenon that has only been repeated twice since, in 2014 and 2023. This was also the fourth all-California World Series, after 1974, 1988, and 1989, and the latest Fall Classic that featured teams from the same metropolitan area or state (since 2000 between cross-town rivals Mets and Yankees). This World Series was notable for its Game 6, where the Giants led 5-0 and were six outs away from winning the championship, but home runs by Scott Spiezio and Darin Erstad, as well as a two-RBI double by Troy Glaus helped the Angels overcome a five-run deficit in the bottom of the eighth to win. The Giants’ Game 6 collapse has been often cited as another manifestation of the Curse of Coogan's Bluff. The two teams set a record for combined most home runs in a World Series (21), which stood until 2017. As of 2026, this is the only time the Angels made or won the World...