2025 World Series: The opening Fall Classic acts at Dodger Stadium
by Mark Langill
Home sweet home.
It could be for Los Angeles this week if it takes care of business at Dodger Stadium against the Toronto Blue Jays. After splitting the first two games at Rogers Centre, the Dodgers, on paper, could run the table and not need to book a return flight to Canada.
With a best-of-seven Fall Classic format, the first game at home — whether Game 1 or Game 3 — is historically critical for any team hoping to maintain or jumpstart momentum.
And several first home games of the World Series at Dodger Stadium have become signature moments and led to championships.
“Gibby, meet Freddie!” — the World Series Game 1 walk-off home runs 36 years apart — were thunderstruck by Kirk Gibson (1988) and Freddie Freeman (2024) against the Oakland Athletics and New York Yankees, respectively.
Do you prefer clutch pitching? The first home World Series games at Dodger Stadium in 1965 and 1981 occurred in Game 3. The Dodgers trailed 0–2 when they returned to Los Angeles, needing a miracle.
Claude Osteen and Fernando Valenzuela delivered.
Osteen and Valenzuela pitched one of the key games of their careers. Osteen masterfully blanked Minnesota on five hits in a 4–0 victory, and the Dodgers won the series in seven games.
Valenzuela in 1981 became the only player to win both Rookie of the Year and Cy Young Award honors in the same season. But Valenzuela didn’t resemble a dominating ace in Game 3 against the Yankees. He walked seven, struck out six, and allowed nine hits. But he hung on for a 5–4 complete game victory. The Dodgers won the 1981 series in six games.
Even when the Dodgers lost the World Series, the first home game was usually memorable.
In 1974, the infield of Steve Garvey, Davey Lopes, Bill Russell and Ron Cey played the first of four Fall Classics together. The matchup with the Oakland A’s was also the first World Series game played between two teams from California.
Although the 1974 Dodgers lost Game 1 at Dodger Stadium 3–2, one of the greatest throws in World Series history was pulled off by right fielder Joe Ferguson. On Reggie Jackson’s potential sacrifice flyout to center in the eighth inning, Ferguson raced in front of sore-armed teammate Jimmy Wynn. His throw on the fly to catcher Steve Yeager nailed Oakland’s Sal Bando attempting to score.
In 1977, the Dodgers split the first two World Series games in New York. A 5–3 loss to New York in Game 3 allowed the Yankees to regain home-field advantage, and New York later clinched the series with an 8–4 victory in New York, powered by Reggie Jackson’s three home runs.
The Dodgers lost the 1978 Series against the Yankees; the opener at Dodger Stadium became a tribute to longtime coach Jim Gilliam, who passed away at age 49 due to a cerebral hemorrhage.
The Dodgers retired Gilliam’s uniform number 19 before the game and added a memorial black circle patch on the uniform sleeve.
When Davey Lopes hit the first of his two home runs in an 11–5 victory, he pointed to the sky as he rounded the bases. Lopes said the Dodgers were dedicating the series to Gilliam’s memory.
After the 1988 championship, the Dodgers endured a 29-year World Series drought until consecutive National League pennants in 2017 and 2018.
Three-time Cy Young Award winner Clayton Kershaw opened 2017 with a 3–1 victory against the Houston Astros.
The Dodgers returned to the World Series in 2018, but they lost the first two games at Boston’s Fenway Park. Game 3, though, was something for the ages, or at least a game that aged both dugouts as Max Muncy’s walk-off home run in the 18th inning ended the longest postseason game in history. The 3–2 victory required seven hours and 30 minutes.
If the Dodgers run the table this week and win three home games against the Blue Jays, it will mark the second time the Dodgers have clinched a World Series on their home field.
The first occurred in 1963 when the Dodgers swept the Yankees.
Although 1963 Series MVP Sandy Koufax received the headlines with victories in Game 1 at Yankee Stadium and the Game 4, 2–1 victory in Los Angeles, it was the first World Series game in Dodger Stadium history that set the stage.
With a 2–0 series lead, Don Drysdale started the first World Series game at Dodger Stadium in Game 3. The 1–0 victory over the Yankees’ Jim Bouton was considered by Drysdale as the most important game of his career.
2025 World Series: The historic openers at Dodger Stadium was originally published in Dodger Insider on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.