TORONTO — Was this the best World Series ever?
That would be my inclination while the memories are still fresh, to go even beyond the definition of “classic” to describe the Dodgers’ seven-game triumph over Toronto. This was a series that included drama, thrills and spills – for the latter, see center fielder Andy Pages running over Kiké Hernández in left field to catch Ernie Clement’s bases-loaded drive in the bottom of the ninth – and maybe even more jubilation and heartbreak than you would normally expect from a winner-take-all Game 7.
But don’t take my word for it. ESPN’s Tim Kurkijan has covered 44 of these, first for Sports Illustrated before moving over to the self-proclaimed Worldwide Leader. In an interview with Canada’s SportsNet after Saturday night’s 11-inning, 5-4 Dodgers Game 7 victory, he called this one the best of those he’s covered and anointed the 18-inning passion play that was Game 3, decided by another Freddie Freeman thunderbolt, as the best individual World Series game he’s witnessed.
I’m not sure I’m ready to go that far and call that the best game ever. I’ve covered 11 World Series — with an asterisk, I guess, because I wrote remotely (thanks to Zoom), as did many of us, during the 2020 Dodgers-Tampa Bay series in the COVID bubble in Arlington, Texas – and watched many, many others.
The 18-inning classic between the Dodgers and Boston in 2018, decided on Max Muncy’s walk-off homer, is right up there as far as individual games. So is Game 6 of the Angels-Giants series in 2002, the night when Dusty Baker removed Russ Ortiz in the seventh inning but let him keep the game ball as a souvenir, only for Scott Spiezio to turn himself into a hero for life in Orange County with his game-deciding home run to force Game 7. And the Chicago Cubs’ hex-breaking Game 7 victory over Cleveland in 2016 ranks right there, with the added dramatic pause of a rain delay in extra innings to ratchet up the tension further.
And yes, the Kirk GIbson game in 1988 is right up there, as are moments provided by Pittsburgh’s Bill Mazeroski in 1960, Boston’s Carlton Fisk in 1975, and the Blue Jays’ Joe Carter in 1993. The sudden ending has a place in this sport that just doesn’t exist in others.
But this Series might stand alone at the top for this reason.
Whether it was because the entire Dominion of Canada seemed emotionally involved in following its country’s only MLB team, or whether it was because the Dodgers spur equal visceral reaction, pro or con, there was a sense on social media especially that the teams and the sport picked up lots of new followers, or at least lots of the curious, as the series went on.
For instance, we saw a lot of chatter – from new Dodger fans, perhaps – about whether it was fair to walk Shohei Ohtani intentionally four straight times, as happened in Game 3, and whether there should be a rule outlawing such liberal use of the free pass. Then again, some of us who have been around a little longer suggested a return to making the pitcher actually throw four wide ones – reintroducing some risk to the exercise – rather than the manager merely holding up four fingers and the plate umpire gesturing to first base. I’m not opposed to that.
I was tempted to throw Barry Bonds’ name out there to see if anyone bit. Dodgers manager Dave Roberts, who played with Bonds in San Francisco and now manages Ohtani, still maintains that Bonds was the best hitter he’s ever seen – we’ll leave the artificial enhancement suggestions out of this conversation for the moment – and the man did set a new standard for free passes.
(Also, it was beginning to look like the intentional walk would come back to bite Roberts early in Game 7, when he ordered an intentional walk to Vladimir Guerrero Jr. right before Bo Bichette’s three-run homer put Toronto in front 3-0 early in the game. As the Dodgers chipped away at the lead, that run seemed awfully big.)
There was also controversy, whether real or ginned up, over the ground rule double late in Game 6 when Addison Barger’s drive lodged at the base of the left field wall and Dodgers rookie Justin Dean, in the game as a defensive replacement, had the presence of mind to hold his hands up to inform the umpires that it wasn’t playable. Much of Canada considered this dastardly gamesmanship, but as more experienced observers noted, the rule is the rule, it was legitimately a ground rule double, and it’s been that way for a long time.
But it was evident by the comments that a lot of people posting or reacting, about those developments and others, were new fans or just getting interested in baseball. The inclination should not be to discourage them or their enthusiasm.
Yet I’m not optimistic.
This could and should be a watershed moment for a sport that once ruled its environment on this continent but has seemingly been surpassed in the public eye (and particularly in the Worldwide Leader’s coverage). This massive opportunity, to take those who discovered or rediscovered baseball this fall and turn them into full-time followers and ideally passionate ones, certainly does resemble the turning point for the NBA at the turn of the 1980s, when Magic Johnson and Larry Bird in tandem, and then Michael Jordan, turned pro basketball into a phenomenon.
But as I say that I am reminded of my default reaction whenever it comes to the Lords of Baseball: Leave it to Rob Manfred and the small-payroll, small-minded owners in the game to screw this up.
Not every owner in this sport wants to win as much as his team’s fan base does, the way Mark Walter and the Dodgers’ ownership do, and not every owner is willing to take the profits and pour them back into the team as the Dodgers do. And don’t kid yourself, with profit sharing and luxury tax money, a good chunk of that contributed by the champs, no owner in this sport is a pauper.
I fully expect those small-minded owners to meet the moment with more whining about the need for a salary cap, a conversation that will likely tarnish the 2026 season and could lead to a work stoppage in 2027 … and there will go all of those potential new fans, running away.
I will say this, though: When the official 2025 World Series documentary comes around next spring, likely on Apple TV as last year’s was, it will be a must-see, and a must-save. And somewhere in that documentary, hopefully, they’ll find room for Joe Davis’ call of Miguel Rojas game-tying home run in the ninth Saturday night: “No way!”
That’s a definition of a classic, isn’t it? The absolutely unexpected becoming reality. It’s the charm of baseball.
jalexander@scng.com