The 1946 major league baseball season began on April 16, 1946. The regular season ended on October 3, with the St. Louis Cardinals and Boston Red Sox as the regular season champions of the National League and American League, respectively. The Cardinals defeated the Brooklyn Dodgers in a regular season best-of-three tiebreaker, for the National League title, after both teams finished their 154-game schedules with identical 96âÂÂ58 records. It was Major League Baseball's first-ever regular season tie-breaker. The postseason began with Game 1 of the 43rd World Series on October 6 and ended with Game 7 on October 15. The Cardinals defeated the Red Sox, four games to three, capturing their sixth championship in franchise history, since their previous in . Going into the season, the defending World Series champions were the Detroit Tigers from the season.
The 13th Major League Baseball All-Star Game was held on July 9 at Fenway Park in Boston, Massachusetts, hosted by the Boston Red Sox. The American League won, 12âÂÂ0.
Many notable ballplayers returned from their military service this season, following the end of World War II, such as Joe DiMaggio, Stan Musial, and Ted Williams.
This was the first season in which the minor-league baseball color line broke. With the support from then-incoming commissioner Happy Chandler, Brooklyn Dodgers general manager Branch Rickey signed Jackie Robinson in late-October to their top minor-league affiliate, the Montreal Royals. Robinson would play for the Royals for the season.
This was the last National and American League seasons to be played under the color barrier, as in the following season, Jackie Robinson would make his debut with the NL's Brooklyn Dodgers to start and Larry Doby would make his debut with the AL's Cleveland Indians in July.
The 1946 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 since the season (except for ) and would be used until in the American League and in the National League.
Opening Day took place on April 16, featuring all sixteen teams, continuing the trend from the previous season. The final day of the scheduled regular season was on September 29, which saw all sixteen teams play, the first time since . Due to the Brooklyn Dodgers and St. Louis Cardinals finishing with the same record of 96âÂÂ58, a best-of-three tie-breaker was scheduled, to be considered an extension of the regular season. The Cardinals swept the series in two games, on October 1 & 3. The World Series took place between October 6 and October 15.
The 1946 season saw the following rule changes:
An asterisk (*) denotes the ballpark a team played the minority of their home games at
9 tie games (5 in AL, 4 in NL), which are not factored into winning percentage or games behind (and were often replayed again) occurred throughout the season.
The postseason began on October 1 and ended on October 15 with the St. Louis Cardinals defeating the Boston Red Sox in the 1946 World Series in seven games.
The Cleveland Indians would play their last game at League Park on September 21 against the Detroit Tigers, permanently moving into Cleveland Stadium for the start of the season. Over 77 home games, the Indians played 41 games at Cleveland Stadium and 36 games at League Park. All Sunday home games took place at Cleveland Stadium. This would be the last of 12 seasons since that saw the Indians play at both venues.