Good morning, America! Why do I love baseball, supreme among all other American sports? Because of nights like last night. Watching Game Seven of the World Series — where the Dodgers eked their way past the Blue Jays at the Rogers Centre in Toronto — made me feel like I was eleven years old again, a kid watching TV simply agog over the drama of it all. Old Jeff suddenly became young Jeff, remembering why I fell in love with this silly stickball game in the first place. That is more than sufficient right now as a salve for the unfortunate burning reality that — ugh — the Dodgers are now back-to-back World Series champions.
Recall that I previewed this year’s Fall Classic as little better than the Iraq–Iran War in baseball form: The Dodgers have built the near-perfect baseball beast with obscene amounts of Luxury Tax-busting spending (including purchasing seemingly the entire pitching roster of the NPB), and are as impossible to root for as Goliath, or the state of California as a whole. Meanwhile the Toronto Blue Jays pitilessly snuffed out the hopes of the plucky and lovable Seattle Mariners, making my investment in their failure suddenly deeply personal. It was time to root for Goliath, I guess.
But this time Goliath made it all worthwhile, by going out and earning it the hard way. For those who missed it — you absolute fools — let me explain: The Dodgers had to pull off a comeback for the ages to win not only last night’s final game, but the entire series as well.
Rarely has a World Series see-sawed in such dramatic fashion: The Blue Jays walloped the Dodgers in Game 1 at home, but then were dominated by Japanese pitching sensation Yoshinobu Yamamoto in a complete game masterpiece in Game 2. The scene switched to Chavez Ravine, where the Dodgers won an 18-inning game — two complete servings of baseball in one night! — on a walk-off homer by aging veteran Freddie Freeman.
Enough drama for you? There’s more! Now up two games to one, the Dodgers then got shellacked in back to back games at Dodger Stadium, conceding not only the lead in the series but home field advantage as well. The last two games were winner-take-all, played in Toronto. There they fell back on Yamamoto, who pitched a win-or-die gem (six innings, six strikeouts, one run) to keep the Dodgers alive.
That brings us to last night, where the Dodgers came from behind to tie the game in the ninth inning. (To repeat a joke seen everywhere last night: “Will Smith hasn’t made contact that solid since he clubbed Chris Rock.”) They finally pulled it out in extra innings, with Yamamoto on the mound once again in relief to close out the game. Obviously exhausted, but willing to fight like a samurai for his team and his competitive pride, he promptly loaded the bases in the 9th inning. In my notes I wrote “game over.” Instead: Behold, the magician at work!
Hail to the victors: My hat is off to the Los Angeles Dodgers. They may be the best team that money can buy, but they also provided the best entertainment that sports can produce last night. The final game of the year was a supreme capstone on a 2025 Major League Baseball postseason full of heartbreak and excitement, but most amazingly (even mystically) of all, it made an old man feel young again.