The 2010 World Series was the championship series of Major League Baseball's (MLB) 2010 season. The 106th edition of the World Series, it was a best-of-seven playoff played between the American League (AL) champion Texas Rangers and the National League (NL) champion San Francisco Giants; the Giants won the series, four games to one, to secure their first World Series championship since 1954 and their first since relocating to San Francisco from New York City in 1958, ending the Curse of Coogan's Bluff. The series began on Wednesday, October 27, and ended on Monday, November 1.
In their respective League Championship Series, the Rangers and the Giants eliminated the 2009 World Series teams—the New York Yankees and the Philadelphia Phillies—each in six games. The Rangers' victory in the AL Championship Series gave the franchise its first World Series appearance in its 50-year history, dating from their inauguration as the second Washington Senators club in 1961. Meanwhile, the victory in the NL Championship Series gave the Giants their fourth World Series appearance since moving to San Francisco prior to the 1958 season; their most recent appearance had been in the 2002 World Series, when they lost to the Anaheim Angels in seven games. Coincidentally, the Giants and Rangers faced off in the first regular-season interleague game, on June 12, 1997, at the Ballpark in Arlington; Rangers reliever Darren Oliver, then in his first stint with the club, threw the game's first pitch.