It’s the Los Angeles Dodgers vs. the Toronto Blue Jays in the 2025 World Series. Who do you like?
The Fall Classic is where baseball’s all-stars become lasting legends. Babe Ruth’s “Called Shot,” Reggie Jackson becoming Mr. October, Jack Morris going ten shutout innings, and more, but not many more, happened to the eyes and ears of nationwide, and now international, audiences. Fans remember the championships.
Both teams have already contributed to baseball’s enduring legacy of memorable World Series heroics. The Blue Jays won their 1993 World Series with a series-winning, walk-off homerun from Joe Carter. The Dodgers won Game 1 in 1988 from a pinch-hit walk-off homerun from Kirk Gibson, and last year Freddie Freeman joined baseball lore with a Game 1 walk-off grand slam. Will this series provide a comparable moment?
This year I’m rooting for the Blue Jays for three reasons. Leading off, Max Scherzer, at 41, is still a great pitcher. A three-time Cy Young winner and two-time World Series champ, Mad Max is destined for the Hall of Fame, and he’s as fired up as ever. He refused to come out of his start in ALCS. He’s a gamer who is fun to watch and the Washington Nationals wouldn’t have won the World Series in 2019 without him.
Next is Trey Yesavage, the flame-thrower rookie pitcher from East Carolina University. Yesavage started the year in Single-A and accelerated through all four levels of the minors. He’s pitched across North America for Dunedin (Florida), Vancouver, New Hampshire, and Buffalo. That’s a lot of traveling. He was called up to The Show in September, he’s pitched six games so far as a Blue Jay, and now he’ll start Game 1 of the World Series. What an amazing meteoric rise.
Last reason is Don Mattingly. Mattingly has been playing and coaching in the big leagues for forty years and this is his first World Series. I’m not a Yankees fan, but I can appreciate their organization and Donnie Baseball was a great first-baseman (nine Gold Gloves) for a historic franchise. Now a coach with the Blue Jays for the last three seasons, Mattingly reaching the World Series after being in the game for so long is a nice story that could end with a well-deserved and long-awaited championship.
As for the Dodgers, they have done well representing the National League. Formerly the Brooklyn Trolley Dodgers, the franchise has eight World Series Championships, seven of them in LA, including two in the last five years. So, they’ve been eating well. It’s time for another to get fat.
The Blue Jays have two World Series Championships, the only times they’ve been, which were back-to-back in 1992 and 1993. They’ve been waiting for another World Series win for 30 seasons, a generation on the sports timeline.
Today’s World Series may not stop traffic in Times Square like it did for Mickey Mantle, but it is still on network broadcast (FOX). I’ll be watching. Let’s go Blue Jays.