The Dodgers’ eight World Series championships are individually worthy of a movie. With that in mind, we continue with part two of an eight-part series that takes one regular season game — a microcosm game for the team’s championship season — and treat it like a screenplay to a movie. The following is a true story of the 2020 World Series champions. The game is Dodgers vs. Giants, July 23, 2020.
Previous stories:
Part 1: 2024 — The Dodgers Fight Back
by Cary Osborne
It was so quiet that every step through the parking lot created an echo. Clip (clip). Clop (clop).
The breeze was slight, yet even leaves brushing against each other were clearly audible.
The sounds and visions of exuberant fans lining up to get into Dodger Stadium were ghosts of yesteryear.
Inside the venerable ballpark, cardboard cutouts of people replaced what would ordinarily be human beings in the seats. Round stickers along the pathway instructed the rare individual in the vicinity to keep six feet of distance in case they encountered another person.
Down below on the grass field at Dodger Stadium, Dodgers and Giants players prepared to play a baseball game. Ribbons of lights flickered. A scoreboard operated like usual, giving those players the impression of normalcy. And gospel singer Keith Williams Jr. tuned up his pipes in the batter’s eye beyond center field before he sang the Star Spangled Banner.
Dodger and Giants lined up, many wearing masks — Dodger players in blue masks, of course.
To win through an irregular regular season of 60 games, to withstand October’s adversities, maybe even make a few comebacks and be the first team in Major League history to win 13 postseason games, it would have to take solidarity, determination and sacrifice to give the Dodgers their first World Series championship in 32 years.
The team had the bitter memories of the 2017 World Series loss to the Houston Astros. And then the 2018 World Series loss to the Red Sox and its MVP, Mookie Betts.
When the Dodgers acquired Betts in a trade with the Red Sox on Feb. 10, 2020, it potentially meant the Dodgers found their missing link to a championship.
A game-changer!
But so was the pandemic, which put the world on pause and baseball from March 12-July 3.
Baseball climbed out of a cocoon for summer camp on July 3. Betts and his teammates reported to Dodger Stadium. And 20 days later, they were on the field for Opening Day.
Betts took the field for the first inning looking in as rookie starting pitcher Dustin May went to work.
He could scan around and see new teammates who have tasted the agony of defeat and were starving for October’s fruits of victory — outfield mates Cody Bellinger and Joc Pederson; in the infield the powerful Muncy, the baseball rat shortstop Corey Seager, the veteran leader third baseman Justin Turner, the utilityman with the flair for the dramatic Kiké Hernández, the catcher with visions of capturing the last out of a World Series in Austin Barnes.
The lineup is deep, Betts thought.
It was the kind of group that could run through the competition in the first 60 games, sweep upstarts in the postseason, be resilient and come back and then win it all.
But for six-and-half innings, it was a stalemate between the Dodgers and Giants. The score was 1–1 heading into the bottom of the seventh.
Betts stood in the batter’s box with one out in the seventh inning facing submarine pitcher Tyler Rogers with one out. He left the bat on his shoulders for the first three pitches. Rogers then came at him from down under with his unusual delivery and Betts locked in on the pitch — swinging, connecting and sending it into left field for his first hit as a Dodger.
He stood on first base and motioned that he wanted the baseball as a souvenir for a potentially special season.
Two pitches later, he was on third base after a Bellinger double.
He took a lead from third base, with Turner now up. As soon as Turner connected on the second pitch of his at-bat, Betts broke for home.
It was a slow roller to the right side and second baseman Donovan Solano, who threw to catcher Tyler Heineman. Betts slid under the tag, giving the Dodgers their first lead of the year.
It’s a lead they never relinquished in the game. They added onto it and won 8–1.
On Oct. 27, at Texas’ Globe Life Field, it was 1–1 in the sixth inning in Game 6 of the World Series.
Fans were in the stadium.
It was so loud.
Mookie Betts took a lead from third base, with Seager now up against Tampa Bay Rays pitcher Nick Anderson. As soon as Seager connected on the second pitch of his at-bat, Betts broke for home.
It was a grounder to the to the right side and first baseman Jiman Choi threw to catcher Mike Zunino.
Betts slid under the tag. He hopped into a crouch. He shook his fist.
The Dodgers led for good in 2020.
2020 Championship Year, a Symbolic Game: An Opening Day unlike any other was originally published in Dodger Insider on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.