The 2009 World Series was the championship series of Major League Baseball's 2009 season. Opening on October 28, it was a best-of-seven playoff between the Philadelphia Phillies, champions of the National League and defending World Series champions, and the New York Yankees, champions of the American League. The Yankees defeated the Phillies, 4 games to 2, with a Game 6 victory in which Hideki Matsui hit his third home run of the series. He was named Most Valuable Player of the series, making him the first Japanese-born player to win the award. Several records were tied, extended, or broken during this World Series, including team championships (Yankees with 27), career postseason wins (Andy Pettitte with 18), career World Series saves (Mariano Rivera with 11), home runs in a World Series (Chase Utley with five), strikeouts by a hitter in a World Series (Ryan Howard with 13), and runs batted in during a single World Series game (Matsui with six). Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_World_Series> _______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries: 1886: In New York Harbor, U.S. President Grover Cleveland dedicated the Statue of Liberty, a gift from France, to commemorate the centennial of the Declaration of Independence. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statue_of_Liberty> 1940: World War II: Italy invaded Greece after Greek prime minister Ioannis Metaxas rejected Benito Mussolini's ultimatum demanding the cession of Greek territory. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greco-Italian_War> 1995: A fire in the Baku Metro, Azerbaijan, killed at least 286 passengers and injured 270 more in the world's deadliest subway disaster. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1995_Baku_Metro_fire> 2007: In the Argentine general election, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner became the first woman to be elected President of Argentina. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cristina_Fern%C3%A1ndez_de_Kirchner> _____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day: Skyriot: One of the inhabitants of the Greek island of Skyros. <https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Skyriot> ___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:   Some people might look at something and let it go by, because they don't recognize the pattern and the significance. It's the sensitivity to pattern recognition that seems to me to be of great importance. It's a matter of being able to find meaning, whether it's positive or negative, in whatever you encounter. It's like a journey. It's like finding the paths that will allow you to go forward, or that path that has a block that tells you to start over again or do something else.   --Jonas Salk <https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jonas_Salk>