Los Angeles. The New York Yankees and the Los Angeles Dodgers, the most popular teams with the two current baseball superstars, will collide starting Friday in a World Series that has been expected for more than four decades.
East Coast against West Coast, Broadway against Hollywood: the fight for the Major League title will be between Goliath and Goliath.
The two undisputed best teams of the season promise a blockbuster that will capture the attention of global baseball fans more than ever.
Since 1981, these historic rivals have not met in a World Series, with a balance so far favorable to the Yankees with eight victories to three for the Dodgers.
“It’s what the baseball world wanted,” said Dodgers coach Dave Roberts. “It’s going to be a great World Series.”
Any title duel between these franchises, which were neighbors until the Dodgers moved from Brooklyn to California in 1957, would be a must-see event in itself.
But the expectations generated this year have skyrocketed to unusual levels due to the stellar rosters of both teams.
The Dodgers, who will host the first two games on Friday and Saturday, have their talisman in Shohei Ohtani, the superstar who in a single year has taken them back to the Fall Classic.
The Japanese is a record-breaking machine and, according to many specialists, the best baseball player since the legendary Babe Ruth, whose talent for throwing and hitting emulates him.
Up front, the Yankees have as their leader the relentless hitter Aaron Judge, the season’s home run leader with 58, four more than Ohtani.
The supporting cast of both figures is also of a very high level.
The Dodgers have Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman, winners of the MVP award like Ohtani, and the Yankees have Giancarlo Stanton and their big signing of the season, Dominican outfielder Juan Soto.
A series of superstars
The collection of stars that will appear on Friday at Dodger Stadium is an extra attraction for the World Series box office, which hopes to be reactivated after years of declining audiences.
As far as playoffsthe average television viewership increased 18 percent, going from 2.82 million per game last year to 3.33 million.
Although it is unlikely that this World Series will equal the record average – the 44.3 million that tuned in to the 1978 final – it is likely that they will leave far behind the 9.08 million that followed last year’s duel between the Texas Rangers and the Arizona Diamondbacks.
Global impact
Ohtani’s exploits have also extended the boundaries of North American baseball.
Major League Baseball reported a record 12.9 million viewers in Japan who tuned in to the final episode of the National League division series against the San Diego Padres, which would be close to 10 percent of the Asian country’s total population. .
“It’s an incredible number, a huge audience,” said Rob Manfred, commissioner of The Majors.
For Manfred, this World Series evokes the golden age of this sport, when it was the main pastime of the United States and its place had not yet been occupied by the American football (NFL) and basketball (NBA) leagues.
“The history of the Yankees and the Dodgers is magnificent for our fans,” the manager recalled.
As expected, ticket prices for this best-of-seven series are sky-high.
According to the TicketIQ site, the ticket for the games in Los Angeles is around $3,100 on average on the secondary market, while those in New York reach $4,875.
The Major League final will have as a backdrop the death on Tuesday of former Mexican pitcher Fernando Valenzuela, idol of Dodgers fans, at age 63.
The Bull Valenzuela, who will be honored on Friday at the start of the series, became a sporting and cultural phenomenon in The Majors with his performances in the 1981 season, when he was a key piece to the Dodgers’ title in the last World Series against the Yankees.
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