1939 World Series
1939 Major League Baseball championship series
The 1939 World Series was the championship series in Major League Baseball for the 1939 season. The 36th edition of the World Series, it featured the three-time defending champion New York Yankees against the Cincinnati Reds, who were making their first Series appearance since winning the scandal-tainted 1919 World Series. The Yankees swept the Series in four games for the second straight year, winning their record fourth consecutive title (they would later win five straight from 1949 to 1953). Yankee manager Joe McCarthy won his fifth title, tying the record held by Philadelphia Athletics manager Connie Mack.
In the 10th inning of the final game, a famous play at the plate typified the Series. "King Kong" Charlie Keller scored when he and the ball both collided with catcher "Schnoz" Ernie Lombardi, and then Joe DiMaggio also scored while Lombardi, rolling on the ground, tried in vain to retrieve the ball. Lombardi had been smacked in the groin, but the press reported it as Lombardi "napping" at the plate.
The Yankees matched the Reds in hits with 27, but out-homered them 7–0 and out-scored them 20–8. Keller led the Yanks with seven hits, three home runs, six RBI, eight runs scored, a .438 average and a 1.188 slugging percentage. Both teams played sterling defense for most of the series until the ninth inning of Game 4.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “1939 World Series” is 1939 Major League Baseball championship series. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through World, Series and Major, not as a finished interpretation.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 9, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4564598. The Library of Congress control number is no2022147413. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1939, 1919, 1949 and 1953.
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This entry incorporates text from “1939 World Series” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.