Update — 1:20 p.m.
The championship celebration is now over.
After Kershaw spoke, several other Dodgers took the microphone: Mookie Betts — who said he wants five or six more titles — Teoscar Hernandez, Blake Treinen, Daniel Hudson, NLCS MVP Tommy Edman and more. And, of course, Shohei Ohtani.
“This is such a special moment for me,” he told the crowd. “I’m so honored to be here and be part of this team. Thank you, Los Angeles, and thank you, fans.”
Before the celebration wrapped up, manager Dave Roberts dedicated this championship to Dodgers icon Fernando Valenzuela, who died Oct. 22 and would have celebrated his 64th birthday Friday.
The celebration ended with, what else, Randy Newman’s “I Love L.A.” blaring out from the Dodger Stadium loudspeakers, and then Queen’s “We Are the Champions.”
Update — 1:14 p.m. Friday
The celebration has gotten a bit emotional.
First, there was World Series hero Freddie Freeman.
When the All-Star first baseman, who played with an injured ankle all postseason, took the microphone, the crowd started chanting his name. It was reminiscent of earlier this summer, when Freeman returned after a short hiatus because his son Max was in the hospital.
Max was diagnosed with Guillain-Barré syndrome. Once Max was discharged and began recovering, the elder Freeman returned to the Dodgers. In his first at bat back at Dodgers Stadium, the crowd serenaded Freeman with chants of “Freddie! Freddie!”
Freeman, on Friday, mentioned how special that moment was.
“You showed up for me and my family,” Freeman said. “It was one of the greatest moments I’ve had on a baseball field.
“I did everything I could to get on the field for you guys,” he added, “and I’m glad I did because we won a championship.”
And then there was Clayton Kershaw, the longtime ace and face of the Dodgers. Much of his career has been marked by greatness during the regular season and failures during the postseason.
During the 202 postseason, Kershaw pitched well — and the Dodgers won it all. The look of relief on his face as he watched the final out from the bullpen became an iconic image.
On Friday, when manager Dave Roberts introduced him, the crowd once again showed how much they love him. His was the largest ovation.
And Kershaw was clearly emotional — and seemed on the verge of breaking down during his remarks.
“I’ve waited for this day for a long time,” he said. “I didn’t have anything to do this with this championship. But this is the best feeling in the world.”
He then raised the tropy into the air to another ovation.
“Dodgers for life!” he shouted.
Update — 1 p.m.
The Dodger Stadium celebration is in full swing and moving at greater pace than Brusdar Graterol fastball.
After Dodgers President and CEO Stan Kasten spoke to the crowd, manager Dave Roberts took the microphone. Both Kasten and Roberts thanked the fans.
And then Roberts quoted rapper Kendrick Lamar: “They not like us,” Roberts said.
Lamar’s song “Not like Us” became a staple in the Dodgers clubhouse this year.
“Let’s get ready to run it back next year,” Robers said, referring to the Dodgers attempt in 2025 to become the first back-to-back champs since the Yankees won three straight from 1998 to 2000.
Kike Hernandez was up next — and it was chaotic.
He held the microphone toward his teammates, who chanted his name. Then he proclaimed the Dodgers the owner of the 2020s — even though it’s only 40% over.
“During Fan Fest 2020,” he said, “I said the 2020s would be the L.A. Dodgers’ decade.
“Who has more championships in the 2020s than us?”
The crowd erupted.
Update — 12:35 p.m. Friday
The party has made its way to Dodger Stadium — and it’s somehow ramping up.
After Dodgers announcers Joe Davis and Stephen Nelson made some opening remarks, including wishing Fernando Valenzuela a happy birthday — he died on Oct. 22, and his 64th birthday would have been Friday — and introduced a surprise performer:
Ice Cube — again.
The iconic Compton rapper, who performed two songs during Game 2 of the World Series, gave an encore performance on Friday. He rapped his song, “It Was a Good Day.”
Then the real stars — the Dodgers — made their way onto the field with the Commissioner’s Trophy.
Update — 12:21 p.m. Friday
The buses have returned to Dodger Stadium — and the crowd there is pumped.
The double-deckers carrying the 2024 World Series champions rolled through the downtown gate around 12:15 p.m. and made their way to “Blue Heaven on Earth,” the plaza just beyond center field. The big screen in the stadium urged the crowd to get loud, and the fans obliged.
People stood on the Dodger Stadium balconies that overlook the parking lot to watch the buses pull up.
Once the buses stop and everyone gets off, the players will walk a blue carpet into the field.
Update — 12:13 p.m. Friday
The parade to celebrate the Dodgers and their 2024 championship has officially ended.
The parade wrapped up around noon and the buses started making their way backto Dodger Stadium, where a ticketed event will take place.
But during the parade, the newly crowned champions seemed to thoroughly enjoy themselves.
Andrew Friedman, the Dodgers president of baseball operations and the architect of the championship squad, stood at the front of the first bus — holding the Commissioner’s Trophy aloft. Next to him was Lakers legend Magic Johnson, who is part of the Dodgers ownership group and has been at the center of multiple such parades.
Elsewhere, utilityman and clutch postseason performer Kike Hernandez and reliever Anthony Banda were both bare-chested — they may not have put on shirts since the champagne party when the Dodgers clinched on Wednesday — as they danced and waved to the crowds.
Ace pitcher Clayton Kershaw, who did not pitch this postseason because of bone spurs in his left big toe, fist-pumped at the crowd and shouted in delight. Long the face of the franchise — and the victim of several postseason failures — Kershaw was among several players on the current team who were denied a parade when they won the World Series in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“This is great. I’ve never seen so many people,” Kershaw told Dodgers sideline reporter Kirsten Watson on Spectrum SportsNet. “I’ve never experienced anything like this.”
The throngs of fans in Downtown Los Angeles, meanwhile, repeatedly chanted the name of their World Series MVP — Freddie Freeman.
Freeman, who sprained his ankle before the start of the postseason, it the first World Series walk-off grand slam in history during Game 1, became the first player to homer in eachof the first four World Series Games and had a World Series record-tying 12 RBI.
“This is incredible,” Freeman told Watson. “L.A. really showed up.
“I think this makes up for 2020,” he added. “This is special.”
Update — 11:31 a.m. Friday
The parade is underway!
Shortly before 11:30 a.m., Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass kicked off the parade with short remarks, calling it a “great day” and shouting, “Let’s go Dodgers.”
Then, blue streamers and confetti shot up into the air, floating back down onto the Dodgers on the buses. And with that, the wheels began spinning and the buses started moving along Spring Street.
The Dodgers, many with cigars and beers in hand, waved to their adoring and appreciative fans — all of whom hoping to glimpse their favorite players. Some players sprayed the crowd with beer.
Update — 11:22 a.m. Friday
The parade to celebrate the Dodgers’ 2024 World Series championship was still a few minutes away, as the double-decker buses slowly their way toward to start of the route in front of City Hall, where Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass will kick things off. They arrived shortly after 11:20 a.m. The parade was officially set to start at 11 a.m.
But that doesn’t mean the party hadn’t already started.
Shortstop Miguel Rojas could be seen on one of the buses with a cigar between his fingers; he and his teammates were donning black World Series T-shirts and white hats. Fans greeted the team even before the parade route, with one person on the buses spraying beer on them.
Update — 10:58 a.m. Friday
The members of the 2024 World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers are on the doubledecker buses — and are about to leave Dodger Stadium for Downtown Los Angeles.
Along the parade route, from City Hall to Fifth and Flower streets, thousands converged to celebrate winning the World Series with their beloved Dodgers.
The atmosphere was jubilant and relaxed. The stress of the postseason has turned to joy.
About half an hour ago, for example, a beach ball made its way down Spring Street toward First Street. The beach ball a staple of the Dodger Stadium experience.
The crowd booed when the ball left the crowd and ended up on the street but cheered wildly as it was returned to the crowd.
Johnny Cepeda, meanwhile, took a photo of his 5-year-old son Johnny II in front of a large replica Dodger foam finger at Gloria Molina Grand Park.
Cepeda said his father took him to a Los Angeles Lakers parade and he wanted to his son to experience the same thing.
“To me this is once in a lifetime,” Cepeda said. “You don’t know how many times the Dodgers can win it.”
They traveled from Corona in Riverside County to get to the parade route.
“Just celebrating with the fans, just being a part and creating memories for my son,” Cepeda said. “It’s something I don’t think he’ll appreciate until he’s older.”
Original post
Los Angeles is accustomed to championship parades — but this one has been a long time coming.
When the 2024 World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers begin their celebratory journey from City Hall to Fifth and Flower streets, at 11 a.m. Friday, Nov. 1, it will represent much more than the triumphant denouement to a title-winning season.
For Walker Buehler, the parade will represent redemption. For Shohei Ohtani, his freedom from futility. For Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman and the entire Dodgers organization, a salve from too many past postseason failures.
Related: Memories of Fernando Valenzuela loom over Dodgers’ victory parade
For franchise icon Clayton Kershaw, a dream fulfilled after being too long denied — stolen, even.
And for the thousands of fans lining the parade route and filling Dodger Stadium for an encore celebration, it will represent years of heartbreak, despair, longing and frustration being washed away at last.
As the parade drew closer, Downtown L.A. became a sea of blue: T-shirts, air horns, blue Mardi Gras beads, plastic gold chains, hand-held flags. And quite literally thousands of Dodgers caps.
“It’s really fun,” Bellarose Vasquez, 14, said as she held a vuvuzela, a noisemaker. “I just like blowing into it and making noise.”
She stood next to her aunt Sylvia Vasquez who held a Dodgers flag and wore a shirt that read “Job is finished.”
“It’s just really cool to see people from a lot of places come together, Bellarose said. “We were coming here and somebody said they came from San Diego and people from all parts and people that you don’t know they all just come and it’s sort of a family so it’s really cool to see that.”
Related: Victory Day in LA: Here’s what you need to know about Friday’s Dodger parade, stadium event
This parade, this celebration 36 years in the making, will, fans hope, also represent something else: Hope that this is just the beginning. Hope that these new boys of summer, who defeated the Yankees in five games in the World Series, have turned into the titans of autumn. That their beloved Dodgers — finally free from the mockery they endured over their 2020 COVID-tinged title and the burden they shouldered over too frequently falling short of expectations — will begin a run even more dominant than the last dozen years.
And that parades in Los Angeles will become as synonymous with autumn as Halloween, Dia de los Muertos and the Santa Ana Winds.
“I don’t want to say this is once a lifetime,” said Jesus Anaya of Laverne, who came to the parade with his 18-year-old son Lorenzo, “because they’re going to do it again.
“But it’s a memory, right? It’s all about these special moments.”
It may be reasonable for the uninitiated to view this all as hyperbole, or overwrought sentimentality.
Related: Dodgers fans delight in a classic comeback to end memorable championship clincher
But that perspective belies what it took to get here and why it means so much to Los Angeles — and Dodgers fans everywhere.
For much of the Dodgers’ nearly 150-year history, they had been beloved, scrappy underdogs. They began in Brooklyn. During the first have of the 20th century, the Dodgers, like the borough they called home, were often upstaged by their glitzy, star-studded intracity rivals, the New York Yankees. The Yankees may have played in the blue-collar Bronx — with the Giants playing in Manhattan — but it was the American League titans who symbolized the brightlights of Broadway.
The Dodgers were “Dem Bums,” as their fans lovingly called them. They made the World Series nine times during those years and almost always lost — usually to the Yankees. Their lone World Series win, by the original boys of summer, came in 1955 against the Yankees. Brooklyn was euphoric.
But before the decade ended, the Dodgers moved to Los Angeles. Brooklyn, which had lived and died with the Dodgers, were heartbroken. Ebbets Field was torn down, the Mets took over Queens a few years later and the Dodgers settled into their new home. But many longtime Dodgers fans remained loyal.
In Los Angeles, things started well. They won the World Series in 1959, 1963 and 1965, behind the golden arms of Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale. But the team wasn’t yet part of the city’s fabric like they had been in Brooklyn.
At least part of that was because of resentment in L.A.’s prodigious Mexican-American community over the city’s use of eminent domain the Hispanic-heavy area of Chavez Ravine, the eventual home of the Dodgers.
That all changed in 1981.
The year of Fernandomania.
Related: Dodger fans line up before dawn for victory parade around City Hall lit up in Dodger blue
Fernando Valenzuela, a pudgy-but-prolific pitcher from a small town in Mexico, burst onto the scene on Opening Day, recording a shutout — the first in a string of eight starts that have since become legend.
Mexican-Americans flocked to Dodger Stadium to see their new, unlikely hero who looked like him. He looked to the sky with every pitch. He threw a devastating screw ball. He helped L.A. win the World Series that year — and took home both the Rookie of the Year and Cy Young awards for his effort.
Valenzuela pitched 11 seasons for the Dodgers, starting in 1980, and ranks ninth on the franchise’s all-time win list. His rookie season in 1981 sparked the ‘Fernandomania’ phenomenon as he went 8-0 with five shutouts to start the season.
The Dodgers fanbase was changed forever. And the franchise has been woven into the city’s fabric ever since. That may not have happened without Valenzuela.
Valenzuela died on Oct. 22. Friday, the day of the parade, would have been his 64th birthday.
His jersey was a frequent sight along the parade route Friday morning.
“So many family members love him and I’ve seen his highlights,” said Johnny Leon, 22, of Pomona, wore a No. 34 jersey — Valenzuela’s number — to the celebration. “I wish he could be here to see this.”
Miguel Ramirez, 49, of Norwalk, highlighted the connection the icon helped foster between the city and the Dodgers.
“Fernando brought so many Hispanics to the game,” he said. I remember watching Fernando pitch against the As on ’88, so to be here today on his birthday is special. Dodgers is family.”
Valenzuela was also a part of the team, though not on the roster, seven years later when the Dodgers won what would be their last full-season championship — until this one.
The 1988 season was not supposed to belong to the Dodgers.
They were the underdogs from Brooklyn reborn again. The Mets, who the Dodgers beat in seven games in the National League Championship Series, had dominated them during the regular season. Valenzuela was nowhere near as dominant as he once was. In the World Series, they faced a juggernaut in the Oakland Athletics. And L.A.’s MVP, Kirk Gibson, had to bum legs.
Related: Alexander: Dodgers cement their status as baseball’s bes
That all changed during Game 1 of the World Series: Gibson limped to the plate in the bottom of the ninth with the Dodgers down a run. There were two outs and one of the two greatest closers the game had ever seen — Dennis Eckersley — on the mound. But at least the tying run was aboard.
With a man on second after a stolen base, and the count full, Gibson hit a backdoor slider into the Los Angeles night. The legendary Vin Scully’s voice was the soundtrack for one of the greatest moments in Dodgers’ history:
“She is … gone!”
“In a year that has been so improbable, the impossible has happened.”
The Dodgers finished off the A’s in five games. And Los Angeles celebrated with a parade.
And 36 years later, history repeated itself — with only a few flourishes.
The Dodgers are no longer the underdogs. They are the behemoths of Major League Baseball.
Related: Dodger Stadium begins to buzz, ready for LA World Series celebration
They’ve won the National League West 11 out of the last 12 years. They regularly win 100-plus games a season. The 2024 World Series marked their fourth appearance in the Fall Classic in eight years. They sellout every game, have a mega television deal and are widely considered to be the best-run organization in baseball.
And they have stars aplenty: Betts and Freeman, Kershaw and Buehler. During previous seasons, they also had Corey Seager, who has two World Series MVPs to his name (one with the Dodgers) and future Hall of Fame pitcher Max Scherzer.
But despite of all those accolades — or maybe because of them — the last dozen years have seemed underwhelming.
In 2017, they lost the World Series to the Houston Astros in a thrilling seven games. But it later turned out the Astros had cheated. The devastating images of Kershaw after being rocked in Game 5 went from another tragic sorrow to an image of martyrdom — since the Astros hitters knew what pitches he would throw.
The title had been stolen from them, their ace had been denied the chance to cement his legacy.
The Dodgers lost in the World Series again the next year, this time to a superior Red Sox team that still had Betts. Hope for a title turned to despair once more.
Then came 2020. The season was only 60 games — but the Dodgers were still dominant. That strange, fan-less season ended with a championship: They beat the Tampa Bay Rays in six games.
But they did so in a neutral site in Texas.
And there was no tribute through the streets of Los Angeles.
The subsequent years were even harsher: They lost in the NLCS in 2021, and then in the Division Series in 2022 and ’23 — despite adding Freeman to the team. Those last two failures stung more because they came against divisional foes.
It was bleak after they lost to the Arizona Diamondbacks last year. Kershaw, their aging, weary ace, needed shoulder surgery. Buehler — a previous postseason beast — was recovering from his second Tommy John surgery. Betts and Freeman hadn’t performed in the last two postseasons.
But then came Ohtani, signing a $700 million contract — most of it deferred for a decade, to allow the Dodgers financial flexibility — to have a chance at postseason ball after six years of futility with the Angels. Yamamoto signed with L.A. too. As did fan favorite Teoscar Hernandez.
Hope sprang eternal.
Related: Dodgers erase 5-run deficit to win first full-season World Series title since 1988
The 2024 season, though, was anything but a cakewalk. Ohtani had the first 50 home run, 50 stolen base season in history, sure. The Dodgers still won the division — and had the best record in MLB.
But they also lost pitcher after pitcher to injuries. Buehler looked like a shell of himself. Betts missed two months to an broken wrist.
The Padres frequently seemed the better team.
And shortly before the postseason began, Freeman severly sprained his right ankle.
But this team also found something they didn’t have in recent years: Grit. Fight. Perserverance.
And an underdog mentality that may not have been warranted given their payroll — but that connected them to the teams from 1088 and 1955.
They took down the Padres in five games in the NLDS. In the NLCS, they took down the Mets — just like in ’88 — in six games.
And that set a date with the Yankees, just like in 1955 and in Valenzuela’s rookie year.
Game one played out similarly to the first game in 1988: Down a run with two outs in the ninth inning, an injured hero stepped to the plate. But instead of Gibson, it was Freeman. Instead of one man on, the bases were loaded. And instead of a full count, Freeman blasted the first pitch into the right field stands.
But it was still the stuff of legend.
“She is gone,” announcer Joe Davis said, in a nod to his predecessor.
And so were the Yankees. The Dodgers won in five games — though it took a historic comeback in the final match.
The Dodgers came back from a 5-0 deficit on Wednesday in New York, eventually taking a 7-6 lead into the night. A weary bullpen, which had been Herculean all postseason, stepped aside in the ninth — to make way for Buehler.
He had been awful this season: Just one win and a 5.38 ERA. He may not have been on the roster had the Dodgers not had an epidemic of injuries to their starting staff.
But postseason Buehler is something else entirely. He mowed down the three Yankees hitters he faced — the last two via strikeouts, on devastating curve balls — and then stretched his arms wide, swaggering into an embrace from catcher Will Smith.
They had done it at last. Back in L.A., fireworks exploded. The celebration had begun on both coasts.
And from the visitors clubhouse at Yankee Stadium to the kinetic, crowded streets of Los Angeles, anticipation built:
The Dodgers and their city would finally get a parade. And the fabric holding the two together will be stronger than ever.
“The pride in it that we get from being a Dodger fan and being part of this big community,” Valerie Valencia said as she sat in a lawn chair in front of City Hall on Friday morning, “and we just all are here for the same reason and I think that’s what’s most exciting.”