The 1978 World Series matched the defending champions New York Yankees against the Los Angeles Dodgers in a rematch of the 1977 Series, with the Yankees winning in six games to repeat as champions.

1978 was the first of ten consecutive years that saw ten different teams win the World Series. The Los Angeles Dodgers would break the string with a World Series win in 1988 (as they won in the 1981 World Series).

This Series had two memorable confrontations between Dodger rookie pitcher Bob Welch and the Yankees' Reggie Jackson. In Game 2, Welch struck Jackson out in the top of the ninth with two outs and the tying and go-ahead runs on base to end the game. Jackson would avenge the strikeout, when in Game 4 he singled off Welch which moved Roy White to second, from which White would score the game winning run on a Lou Piniella single to tie the series at 2-2. In Game 6, Jackson smashed a two-run homer off Welch in the seventh to increase the Yankees' lead to 7–2 and put a final "exclamation point" on the Yankees' victory to win the series.

It wasn’t easy for these two teams to repeat as their respective league’s champions, both scrambling back to the Fall Classic late in the season.

The New York Yankees were as far back as fourteen games behind the Boston Red Sox at mid-July suffering from injuries to pitchers Catfish Hunter and Jim Beattie. A public display of antipathy between manager Billy Martin and slugger Reggie Jackson resulted in the replacement of Martin by the amenable, easygoing Bob Lemon on July 17. With time running out, the Yankees, four games behind the Red Sox in the American League East, began a crucial four-game series in Boston. On September 7, the Yanks began the "Boston Massacre" with a 15–3 drubbing of the “Sox” with second baseman Willie Randolph driving in five runs. The assault continued with the Yankees winning game two, 13–2, game three, 7–0 (Ron Guidry winning his 21st—a two-hitter) and game four, an eighteen-hit, 7–4 victory completing the sweep. The Yankees and Red Sox were now tied for first place with twenty games remaining for both clubs. Overall, New York would win 48 of their last 68 games finishing the regular season in a dead-heat with Boston. The Yanks went on to win a one-game playoff (5–4) on October 2 made famous by light hitting Bucky Dent's clutch three-run homer in the seventh inning (his fifth of the year). Ron Guidry would win his 25th game (against only three losses); Goose Gossage pitching the last 2 ²⁄₃ innings picking up his 27th save, retiring hall of famer Carl Yastrzemski with a man on base for the final out.

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