The greatest! Dodgers overwhelm Yankees to win 8th World Series title

NEW YORK – The quiet, gloomy Bronx was suddenly bathed in happy, dancing blue, a screaming crowd jumping and jumping, throwing themselves into history.

The Dodgers did it. They really did it.

The hallowed New York Yankees stood frozen in their dugout, stripped of their aura and beaten to their very being, pinstripe by pinstripe painfully destroyed.

The Dodgers did it. They really did it.

The team that is suffocating has swallowed swords. The team that collapses breathes fire. Baseball's most gnashing big team chewed through a legacy of frustration on an October night that was once unforgettable but will now live on forever.

The Dodgers won the World Series. They really won the World Series.

They didn't just win it, they dominated it, they weakened it, they fucking owned it, pulling off a five-game victory over the disintegrating Yankees with a five-run comeback and With a 7:6 win, the title ended four games to one.

“It really doesn’t make any sense to me right now,” said backup Blake Treinen, looking dazed as he stood on a field full of gold streamers and guttural teammates. “What a cool moment. This is amazing.”

While it ended here with a joyful group hug from the Dodgers that turned this weathered urban field into a blue heaven on earth, on the other side of the country all hell broke loose, a celebration of a connection that 2,792 miles couldn't destroy.

Los Angeles, dance with your Dodgers. Hug your neighbor in the Koufax jersey, yell at Fernando, Scully and Lasorda, maybe even cry a little. It's okay, you deserve it, you deserve it. You weren't here for the destination, but you were here for the journey, the best fans in baseball, filling Chavez Canyon all summer long and shaking the old stadium with your unconditional support, your sustained roar and your love .

“The Dodgers are the most important franchise in town right now,” said Magic Johnson, part owner. “We needed a championship. The Dodgers had to make this happen for the city of Los Angeles, bring back that championship feeling and show our fan base that we will do whatever it takes to win.”

And now? Johnson smiled as only he can smile.

“Now we get a parade,” he said. “The city deserves it, last time (2020) we didn’t get one, now they’re getting one.”

The Dodgers have waited so long for this parade that they made it a reality Friday in downtown Los Angeles, perfectly timed to coincide with the late Fernando Valenzuela's 64th birthday. The legendary pitcher died three days before the Series, but his inspiration lived on on the patch on the player's uniform and in their fight.

“This is the toughest team I’ve ever seen,” Treinen said. “You can’t measure the heart of this team.”

Yes, the Dodgers really did it, in a way that no Dodgers team from Jackie to Bulldog to Kershaw had ever done before.

This was the greatest team in Los Angeles Dodgers history, experienced the greatest postseason in Dodgers history and cemented the greatest Dodgers dynasty of all time.

World Series Most Valuable Player Freddie Freeman struck out, Mookie Betts fumbled, Teoscar Hernández sprayed, Tommy Edman slid and Shohei Ohtani, with sore shoulders, made a difference by simply standing.

This was a shaky rotation that turned into gold and a bullpen that turned into steel, with Yoshinobu Yamamoto strong early in the series, Blake Treinen striking out late and Walker Buehler on Wednesday with a strikeout against Alex Verdugo in a day break provided the finishing touches.

The 1988 champs had Bulldog, the 2024 champs had Buehler.

“It was all adrenaline,” said Buehler, who embodied the courage of this team with his first substitute appearance in six years. “I was trained so I can play catch tomorrow, then I’ll come into the game.”

This was traditional Dodgers talent mixed with newfound Dodgers talent. This explosive combination exploded across the baseball world, leaving teams from the Pacific Ocean to the Hudson River in shambles.

This was Los Angeles' seventh championship and eighth in franchise history, its first since the shortened season in 2020 and its first full-season title since 1988.

“I’m sure there’s no asterisk here,” manager Dave Roberts said.

Most pleasingly, this is the Dodgers' first title with home fans since the Orel Hershiser-led group 36 years ago as COVID emptied stadiums in 2020.

Dodgers players cheer as outfielder Teoscar Hernández (37) hits a single in the ninth inning of Game 5 of the World Series against the Yankees on Wednesday at Yankee Stadium.

(Wally Skalij/Los Angeles Times)

All in all, the 2024 Dodgers season was a vision fulfilled and a promise kept, finally fully living up to the expectations that came with 12 consecutive playoff berths, including 11 National League West titles.

All that hardware and just one damn crown so far, as Wednesday's emotional ending capped a crazy, captivating journey through their best fall ever.

Against the San Diego Padres, they trailed until their last out and then won two straight games to clinch the National League Division Series.

They topped the New York Mets 46-22 and won the National League Championship Series in six games, in which the Dodgers pitching staff went on a scoreless streak of 33 innings.

They defeated the Yankees in Game 1 of the World Series with a walkoff grand slam by Freeman and never looked back, giving up Game 4 to ruin a sweep, but rebounding to pull off the greatest game-winning comeback in World history Series.

They trailed 5-0 after three innings of home runs from Aaron Judge, Jazz Chisholm and Giancarlo Stanton. But the Yankees imploded with three terrible fielding plays in the fifth that allowed the Dodgers to tie the game

The Yankees took the lead again in the sixth, but in the eighth the Dodgers scored twice on a few sacrifice hits – typical of a team that would unselfishly do anything to win – and Treinen and Buehler shut out the Yankees to do so to end the game.

“Tonight was basically the epitome of our season,” Max Muncy said. “We got a couple hits, came back, got another hit, came back. “It's just one guy after another coming out, doing his job, struggling, Walker coming in ninth… it's in literally the epitome of our season.”

Phew. Gasp. Screams. Tears. The Dodgers have never had four weeks like this.

“It seems like we’ve hit every possible speed bump over the course of this year,” Freeman said. “And it’s special to overcome what we did as a group.”

The title of the greatest Los Angeles Dodger team and the best Dodger postseason team is thus solidified, and their two championships and four pennants in the last eight years also make them the greatest Dodgers dynasty.

“My ultimate goal is that when we're done, we can look back and say this was the golden era of Dodger baseball,” baseball president Andrew Friedman said.

No reason to look back. It's true now. This is the golden era of Dodger baseball.

Fittingly, it reached that peak this fall with major contributions from the three leaders who have spent the last decade trying to win this thing.

It begins with Mark Walter, the low-profile chairman and majority owner of the Dodgers, as managing director of Guggenheim Partners.

Walter isn't around often – he wasn't at the game on Wednesday – but the wallet he controls never goes away, and with his approval, the Dodgers have one of the highest payrolls in baseball every year. That winter he signed more than $1 billion in contracts for artists like Ohtani and Yamamoto, and you know what happened next.

Ohtani was the best player in the National League and the biggest difference between this successful playoff team and the failures of the past; Witness his home run in NLDS Game 1 that got this party started. Yamamoto was injured most of the summer, but he beat the Padres in the NLDS elimination game and was a revelation in October.

Walter's generosity was matched by the renowned acumen of Friedman, baseball's finest manager, who had an outstanding season that far surpassed even the signings of Ohtani and Yamamoto.

“We came here to understand what this organization was about,” said president and co-owner Stan Kasten, who was part of the Guggenheim Group that bought the bankrupt team in 2012. “We knew the legacy we were allowed to carry on.” It's Jackie and Sandy and Fernando and so on and so forth. We took this responsibility seriously.”

Guggenheim's investment was bolstered by the renowned acumen of Friedman, baseball's finest manager, who had an outstanding season that far surpassed even the signings of Ohtani and Yamamoto.

Don't forget that Friedman also signed Teoscar Hernández, the team's second MVP, last winter. Then, at the summer trade deadline, he tripled down by trading for Edman, Michael Kopech and Jack Flaherty, all three big October contributors.

The Dodgers' final win in Game 5 over the New York Yankees secures the 2024 World Series title.

Ultimately, Roberts combined the talents of Walter and Friedman and moved from the hot seat to a possible spot in the Baseball Hall of Fame, deftly leading this diverse group to his second title in nine seasons.

During a summer filled with pitching injuries and intrigue surrounding Betts' position, Roberts was a constant force, consistently positive, unwaveringly consistent, and ultimately steering the team through waters that occasionally gave him problems.

Translated: He managed his October bullpen superbly, pushing all the right buttons and deftly leading them through four bullpen-only games necessitated by starting pitching injuries.

“This is something I really wanted, I wanted this,” said Roberts, who has never received the recognition he deserves from fans.

He wanted it, and his players wanted it, and their connection ensured that everyone in blue got the best out of it. After a month that was once hell and suddenly became heaven, their best was more than enough to finally earn them the title of baseball's best.

The Dodgers won the World Series. They really won the World Series.