Dodgers Win World Series

The Los Angeles Dodgers won the 2024 World Series by defeating the New York Yankees in Game 5:

The Los Angeles Dodgers won their second World Series championship in five seasons, overcoming a five-run deficit with the help of three Yankees defensive miscues and rallying on sacrifice flies from Gavin Lux and Mookie Betts in the eighth inning to beat New York 7-6 in Game 5 on Wednesday night

Personal note; A typical "homer," your humble blogger takes an interest in Major League Baseball only when the San Francisco Giants have a contending team.

But this is one World Series that any boomer sports fan had to watch. We remember when baseball was head and shoulders above the NFL and NBA, and the '50's and '60's Yankees and Dodgers had some of the most famous players ever to play the sport. In 2024 the Yankees and the Dodgers had the most glamor and the fattest payrolls--along with their storied histories--and this World Series would demonstrate whether baseball still deserved a place at the top of the sports pyramid.

This is the World Series that Major League Baseball has been dreaming about.

The New York Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers are the most prestigious and popular franchises in the sport, loaded with enough star power to light up a small city. Shohei Ohtani is a once-in-a-century talent, now playing on the game’s biggest stage for the first time. Network executives are betting that it will be the most-watched Fall Classic in years.

“Baseball purists probably love it. I know MLB probably loves it. Fox definitely loves it,” Yankees pitcher Carlos Rodón said ahead of Friday’s Game 1. “There’s definitely some glamor to it.”

...There are five different players in this World Series—Ohtani, Judge, Freeman, Betts and Yankees slugger Giancarlo Stanton—who have won an MVP award, and that doesn’t even count injured Dodgers pitcher Clayton Kershaw. Assuming they all appear in a game, it will be an all-time record.

One of those players has been named MVP in six of the past seven seasons, a streak that is going to continue with Ohtani and Judge, the presumed MVPs for 2024. It will make this the first World Series since 2012 and just the second since 1988 to feature both MVPs from that season.

The business assessments have to wait on the viewership ratings and other financial analytics, but from this fan's standpoint the 2024 World Series had many interesting and suspenseful moments that showcased why baseball is unique and fascinating.