WORLD SERIES PARADE | DODGERS' VICTORY PARADE

 

LOS ANGELES DODGERS, ALL OF THEM, ARE WORLD CHAMPS

NEW YORK -- The 2024 World Series is over: Shohei Ohtani and the Los Angeles Dodgers are champions in five games, the first title for him and, for the team, the eighth in franchise history.

There were heroes and goats, as there are in every Fall Classic, but no storybook showdown of Ohtani versus Aaron Judge. There were dramatic grand slams, stunning comebacks and horrible defensive miscues. The New York Yankees' title drought reached 15 years, and their captain, Judge, faced struggles that sometimes reached nightmarish levels.

In the end, what we got was a pure baseball matchup decided by baseball factors, and mostly by the fact the Dodgers had more good players than their opponent. They earned it -- as a group.

"They were the better team in this series," Yankees manager Aaron Boone said, while praising his own heartbroken club.

This championship, and the way Los Angeles achieved it, is less about the names on the marquee and more because of the ensemble. It belongs to them all, as much to the supporting cast of Teoscar Hernandez, Gavin Lux and Max Muncy as to Ohtani and fellow stars Freddie Freeman and Mookie Betts. To anonymous relievers as much as more heralded starters such as Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Jack Flaherty. None of this is by accident. The Dodgers won this way because they were built to win this way.

Every season, the Dodgers rank near the top of the majors in categories such as rookie WAR and in total appearances on the transaction wire. Think about that: With all of the resources poured into the L.A. payroll -- the Dodgers spent more than $1 billion this past offseason -- the Andrew Friedman-led front office never stops tweaking the roster mix, addressing needs both immediate and imagined. The Dodgers excel at turning other teams' excesses into gold, with journeymen such as Ryan Brasier, Brent Honeywell and Anthony Banda becoming crucial contributors to the bullpen. Every bit as much attention is paid to the bottom 10 slots on the 40-man roster as it is to the top three.

"It's about getting the right players, the right people," Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. "Talent is a lot, but it's not everything. You still have to be cohesive. I just think we do a great job of getting the right players in our clubhouse."

The Dodgers have as much star power as any team we've seen in recent years, but they could never be accused of taking a stars-and-scrubs approach, or constructing a top-heavy roster. Depth or stars? We'll have both, thank you.

"We have a culture here at the big league level," Roberts said. "But the scouting and player development is second to none."

After a second title in five years, the Dodgers, from top to bottom, are what Roberts says -- second to none.

THIS WAS SUPPOSED to be the Ohtani-Judge World Series.

Just look at the cover of the official program. On the left is Ohtani, his face exuding focus and exertion, his arms pointing behind him in the act of the backswing that completes the arc of one of his mighty hacks.

Shohei Ohtani and Aaron Judge grace the cover of the official 2024 World Series program. 

Judge is on the right, his mouth open in the midst of a shout, his head turned as he presumably looks at the bedlam in the dugout in the aftermath of one of his missile-like blasts into the farthest expanses of Yankee Stadium.

It would be Ohtani vs. Judge, in the ultimate version of a baseball hero's journey, one with no antagonists but two protagonists on a parallel odyssey in pursuit to slay the same dragon: a career-first championship.

Thus was the hook for the resumption of baseball's most prolific Fall Classic matchup, Yankees-Dodgers, the dream showdown between two of baseball's most storied franchises.

The hype wasn't without justification. This truly was an unprecedented clash between perhaps the best-right-now players in the sport, starring for marquee franchises in the glitziest of markets and biggest of stages. Together during the regular season, Judge and Ohtani hit .315/.423/.672 with 112 homers, 274 RBIs, 256 runs and 69 stolen bases. That's from two players.

This pairing of the game's two best players just hasn't happened very often in World Series history. It's easy to lose yourself in a debate about just who was considered the best in the game at any point, but the clear precedents are few: Ty Cobb vs. Honus Wagner in 1909. Ted Williams vs. Stan Musial in 1946. George Brett vs. Mike Schmidt in 1980.

Let's imagine the Platonic ideal as the climactic scene of "The Natural," when Roy Hobbs -- "the best there ever was" -- homers into the stratosphere, turning another Knights disappointment into an instant pennant. We've never had that payoff -- a championship-winning, come-from-behind home run blasted by the game's best player.

None of the superstar matchups we highlighted had the type of payoff we might dream of, and most of them disappointed altogether. In the just-completed 2024 showdown, while Ohtani played well as a stalwart at the top of the lineup, his series was most noteworthy because he popped his shoulder on a slide, bringing the term "subluxation" into the mainstream. And Judge, homerless until the clinching game, was astonishing to watch for much of the series, after a season in which he recorded one of the best offensive showings in history.

"He's a great player," a sympathetic Roberts said after Game 4. "I have so much respect for Aaron. There's probably a little bit of maybe trying too hard right now."

That's baseball, though, isn't it? When we zero in on a star matchup like Ohtani against Judge, that's the possibility we're teasing, even as we know the nature of the sport itself makes the realization of the dream scenario so unlikely.

In fact, the most cinematic moment of the series was not produced by Ohtani, Judge -- or even each team's next best player, Betts or Juan Soto. That belonged to yet another star, Freeman, in a postseason when his injuries threatened to keep him out of the lineup. His two-out, Game 1-ending grand slam evoked immediate images of 1988 Kirk Gibson and inspired Joe Davis' epic, instantaneous Vin Scully homage.

There's a lesson in there, both about baseball and about the Dodgers. No matter who we zero in on, it's never about only one person. Anybody might be the one to realize a boyhood dream.

"Those are the kind of things, when you're 5 years old with your two older brothers and you're playing whiffle ball in the backyard," Freeman said, "those are the scenarios you dream about. Two outs, bases loaded in a World Series game."

As for Ohtani, he went 0-for-4 in the clincher and struck out with the bases loaded in the sixth. It didn't make his night any less sweet.

"The success of the postseason is very similar to how we were able to pull it off during the regular season," Ohtani said, via interpreter Will Ireton. "Again: The strength of the organization. Extremely honored to be a part of this."

CONSIDER THAT 29 different Dodgers played this October. Nearly everyone had meaningful roles along the way, including a bright-eyed rookie named Ben Casparius, who began October with all of three big league appearances under his belt. He ended up making a start in Game 4 as an opener.

This is every bit as much a characteristic of this era of Dodgers baseball as the presence of household names Ohtani, Betts, Freeman and Clayton Kershaw.

"It takes a lot to get here," Kershaw said. "Regardless of the talent level, everybody just assumes that we're going to show up, win 100 games and win the World Series. It takes every last guy."

Since the start of the 2021 season, the Dodgers have had 68 instances of a player recording at least one bWAR. Only the Brewers and Rays (69 each) have more. But the Dodgers have also had 17 instances of a player reaching an All-Star level of four BWAR, second only to the Astros (18). L.A.'s success is built on stars plus depth.

During the 12 full seasons since the Guggenheim Baseball Management group assumed control of the Dodgers, they've won 99.2 of every 162 regular-season games they've played. During the wild-card era, no team has done better over such a span, one that has included 11 first-place finishes, a 12-for-12 presence in the postseason bracket, four pennants and, now, two World Series titles. And there is no question the Dodgers' economics might play a role in the team's staying power. According to Cot's Contracts, the Dodgers have sported a top-five payroll in all of those seasons. Yet other teams make huge payroll splurges -- including the past two teams they beat, the Yankees in the World Series and the Mets in the National League Championship Series -- and the Dodgers are sometimes outspent by one or two competitors.

A level of investment measuring in the billions sets a clear expectation for everyone who dons Dodger blue: to do what they did Wednesday -- win it all. That expectation isn't just carried by Ohtani, Betts and Freeman, but everyone who steps into the clubhouse. They would have it no other way.

"You've got a lot of good people that care about winning and that want to win," second baseman Gavin Lux said. "None of them have egos."

The Dodgers' stars, including Ohtani, outperformed their New York counterparts, especially Judge, in the Series, but that was mainly because of Freeman's massive output as World Series MVP. That certainly played a part in L.A.'s triumph.

But in terms of the headliner matchup, at no point did this feel like an Ohtani-versus-Judge World Series. If anything, it was the Freeman series, but of course he isn't going to claim that title.

"Sitting here now, I've just been blessed to be able to play this game a long time and be in certain situations because of the group of guys, the organization," Freeman said. "Just from top to bottom, to be put into a situation. ... I mean, I got asked about the RBIs, and the RBIs are because there were guys on base. That's my teammates."

NO TEAM LOST more player games to injury in 2024 than the Dodgers. Even as they sprayed champagne and whooped it up in the clubhouse at Yankee Stadium on Wednesday, the Dodgers had more than an entire upper-tier starting rotation on the injured list.

That's why Roberts -- whose postseason decisions have been maligned by Dodgers fans and detractors alike over the years -- deserves so much credit for this run. It's not just that Roberts, along with pitching coach Mark Prior, was able to navigate around the losses in the pitching staff. It's also that the skipper, as usual, folded in rookies such as outfielder Andy Pages, Landon Knack, Casparius and even Yamamoto, not a traditional rookie but a rookie nonetheless. It's also that when the Dodgers splurged at the trade deadline, adding Flaherty, Tommy Edman and Michael Kopech, they all fit so seamlessly on and off the field that it's easy to forget they didn't join the team until the end of July.

No game showed it more acutely than the Dodgers' Game 5 win against San Diego in the NL Division Series, when the big three went a combined 1-for-10 but four relievers backed Yamamoto on a two-hit shutout and Teoscar Hernandez and Enrique Hernandez hit solo homers for the game's only runs.

"He lets you be the player that you'll always be," Teoscar said of Roberts. "He lets you have fun. His communication with his players is one of the best that I've had in my career. I think that's why he's so special for this team and the players."

Roberts' masterpiece was Game 5, when he had to work around Flaherty's too-brief outing and a bullpen with perhaps too few adequately rested arms. So Roberts rode relief ace Blake Treinen for 42 pitches -- seven more than he got from Flaherty. And then he turned to Walker Buehler, his Game 3 starter only two days before, to slam the door in the ninth.

"That's one of the best games I've ever seen managed," Freeman said. "That was special."

Through it all, Roberts spreads the credit steadily away from himself, even as he joins the short list of managers who have won more than one World Series, a list made up almost entirely of current and future Hall of Famers, including Dodgers legends Walter Alston and Tommy Lasorda.

"Humbling," Roberts said. "Never thought I would be in that same conversation. I'm a part of a great organization, a lot of great people around me supporting me, and we've won a lot of ballgames. This is something I really wanted. I wanted this one."

If Roberts required validation that perhaps the team's shortened-season 2020 title did not supply -- he has it. He might just be another high-profile cog in the Dodgers' immense apparatus, but he's a vital one. He's also the manager of a dynasty.

This championship -- after a grueling marathon of 162 games plus a month of playoffs, cannot be diminished. It took all of the Dodgers to make it happen, right to the end.

When the Dodgers spilled out of the third-base dugout after the final out, Ohtani, Betts and Freeman were in the middle of the pile. So too were Casparius and Knack. Baseball's latest championship doesn't belong to any one of them, but all of them, under a banner dyed a rich Dodger blue, just how it was drawn up all along.

- Bradford Doolittle, ESPN Staff Writer

DODGERS VS. YANKEES | WORLD SERIES INNING 5 | HIGHLIGHTS

DODGERS: FREDDIE FREEMAN DECIMATED UNPRECEDENTED WORLD SERIES RECORD IN GAME 4

Los Angeles Dodgers superstar first baseman Freddie Freeman is on a historic tear in the 2024 World Series.

Credit: Brad Penner-Imagn Images

Freeman broke the record for most consecutive World Series games with a home run after he sent a 343-foot bomb into the right field stands at Yankee Stadium during the first inning of Game 4 on Tuesday night. The home run made it six straigh,,t games that the former 2020 National League MVP has connected on a long ball in the Fall Classic dating back to Game 5 of the 2021 World Series when he was a member of the Atlanta Braves.

Credit: Vincent Carchietta-Imagn Images

According to MLB.com’s AJ Cassavell, Freeman felt that the achievement was “pretty cool” to notch and he wants to keep up his hot bat, but the standout infielder is focused on closing out the New York Yankees in Game 5 more than anything else. Though he’s appropriately laser-focused on winning the Commissioner’s Trophy without delay, his achievement is worthy of recognition. Cassavell unveiled this tidbit that accentuates just how special the feat is:

“Only Houston’s George Springer had homered in four straight games within a single World Series, having done so in Games 4-7 in 2017, but Freeman is the first to do it in the first four games of the Fall Classic,” Cassavell wrote.

Freeman could make more MLB history en route to potential World Series MVP

If Freeman hits another home run in the Dodgers’ potential World Series clincher on Wednesday night, he can also become the first player to homer in five straight games of the same World Series, and would put a definitive stamp on his case to be named World Series MVP.

The California native has a whopping 10 RBIs along with an otherworldly .313/.353/1.188 slash line and a 1.540 OPS added to the four home runs he has to his name against the Yankees so far. He’s been the Dodgers’ most impactful player through four contests and, barring an explosion from reigning NLCS MVP Tommy Edman or starting pitcher Walker Buehler (should the series reach a Game 7), Freeman should have the top individual World Series honor in the bag, along with an unreal MLB record to go along with it.

- Matthew Legros

YANKEES WIN GAME 4 OF WORLD SERIES WITH 'BIG HIT' BY ANTHONY VOLPE

NEW YORK -- For about two hours Tuesday night, the most surreal moment in Anthony Volpe's life happened in the third inning of Game 4 of the World Series.

The New York Yankees' homegrown shortstop in every sense, a lifelong Yankees fan who lived on the Upper East Side before his family moved across the Hudson to New Jersey when he was in the fourth grade, supplied his club with the oxygen it needed while facing elimination.

It came in the form of a grand slam off Los Angeles Dodgers reliever Daniel Hudson -- a 107.6 mph missile that landed a few rows beyond the left-field wall at Yankee Stadium -- that gave the Yankees a lead they wouldn't relinquish in an 11-4 rout to cut their series deficit to 3-1. Fifteen years after attending the Yankees' last World Series parade in 2009, back when he was 8 years old and his teeth were less straight, he was on the field starring in pinstripes in the World Series.

Nothing could top it. And then, about two hours later, something did.

"VOL-PE! VOL-PE! VOL-PE!"

The chants originated with the Bleacher Creatures before spreading to the rest of the building with one out in the ninth inning. They echoed while Volpe stood at shortstop. That moment, he said, surpassed the grand slam.

"No. 1," Volpe said. "Definitely No. 1."

The Yankees were desperate for a breakthrough blast after scoring seven runs in the first three games of this clash of coastal titans. They failed to capitalize on scoring opportunities in the three losses, pushing themselves to the brink after having not held a lead since Nestor Cortes surrendered the walk-off grand slam in Game 1.

It looked like it would be more of the same early Tuesday, when Freddie Freeman swatted a laser over the short porch in right field for a two-run homer, extending his streak of World Series games with a home run to a record six. The swing deflated the sellout crowd. The Yankees then wasted two scoring opportunities in the first two innings. The script was familiar.

The Yankees left two runners stranded in the first inning. Then in the second, Volpe's decision to tag up on a ball Austin Wells hit off the wall in center field might have cost a run. Instead of Wells legging out a triple, Volpe advanced just 90 feet and Wells settled for a double. Alex Verdugo scored Volpe on a groundout, but that was the only run the Yankees produced.

Anthony Volpe said his Game 4 experience was one he envisioned "probably every night" growing up. "It is pretty crazy to think about," Volpe said. "It's my dream, but it was all my friends' dreams, all my cousins' dreams, probably my sister's dream too." Sarah Stier/Getty Images

"That's completely on me," said Volpe, who finished 2-for-4 with a walk and three runs scored. "It's not a hard read, one we practice, one that Little Leaguers make."

Volpe avenged his blunder with the most important swing of his life in the third inning. Hudson, the second reliever the Dodgers deployed for their scheduled bullpen day, hit Aaron Judge with a pitch, yielded a single to Jazz Chisholm Jr. and walked Giancarlo Stanton to load the bases. After Anthony Rizzo popped out, Volpe came to the plate with two outs looking for a fastball. But he recognized the spin on Hudson's slider after striking out against him in Game 3 and pounced, igniting the building and altering the trajectory of the series.

"I think I pretty much blacked out as soon as I saw it go over the fence," Volpe said.

It was the Yankees shortstop's first career postseason home run and the first World Series grand slam by a Yankee since Tino Martinez blasted one in Game 1 in 1998 against the San Diego Padres. Volpe, at 23 years and 184 days old, became the youngest Yankee with a grand slam in the World Series since Mickey Mantle in 1953.

"One thing about us is we love history and we love to make history. So, for us, we're out here trying to make history right now."

Jazz Chisholm Jr.

"That big hit, we've been looking for it," Verdugo said. "It happened and it just felt like a big exhale in the dugout, and everybody could play and free easy again, and just worry about adding on and keeping the lead."

The Dodgers sliced the lead to one with two runs, both charged to Luis Gil, in the fifth inning, but New York's bullpen stymied them from there. Five Yankees relievers held L.A. without a hit over the final four innings while the offense worked against the Dodgers' slew of relievers.

Wells, who entered the night 4-for-43 with 19 strikeouts in the postseason, crushed a solo home run to the upper deck in the sixth inning. Two innings later, the Yankees finally busted the game open with a five-run outburst, fueled by Gleyber Torres' three-run home run, while forcing Dodgers right-hander Brent Honeywell to throw 50 pitches.

The cushion allowed Yankees manager Aaron Boone to not use Luke Weaver, the team's best reliever, for the ninth inning after the right-hander tossed 1⅓ innings, which should make Weaver available in Game 5 when the Yankees will attempt to become the first team to ever force a Game 6 after trailing 3-0 in a World Series.

"One thing about us is we love history and we love to make history," Chisholm said. "So, for us, we're out here trying to make history right now."

"That big hit, we've been looking for it," Alex Verdugo said of Anthony Volpe's game-changing grand slam that helped the Yankees stay alive in the World Series. Sarah Stier/Getty Images

The Yankees still have a shot to author history, to become the second team to ever dig out from a 3-0 hole in a postseason series, because of Volpe's swing in the third inning.

To that point, Volpe was 1-for-12 with two walks and seven strikeouts in the World Series, regressing from his strong start to the playoffs. After slashing .243/.293/.657 during the regular season, the second-year shortstop batted .310 with an .804 OPS through the American League Championship Series. He was swinging harder than he did during the regular season and walking more -- eight walks in 37 plate appearances. He attributed the improvement to his work during the Yankees' four off days between the regular season and the start of the AL Division Series.

On Tuesday, the effort produced an outing he envisioned "probably every night" growing up with two moments he will never forget.

"It is pretty crazy to think about," Volpe said. "It's my dream, but it was all my friends' dreams, all my cousins' dreams, probably my sister's dream too. But winning the World Series was first and foremost by far. Nothing else compares. So, we still got a lot of work to do."

- Jorge Castillo, ESPN Staff Writer

THE WORD SERIES FINAL IS SET 🔥