Why Yankees-Dodgers World Series will be must-watch

If it feels like we’ve all been expecting a Yankees-Dodgers World Series most of our lives, it’s because we have.

Since these two teams last faced each other in the 1981 Fall Classic, the Yankees have had a winning record 38 out of the 43 complete seasons and made the playoffs 25 of those 43 seasons; the Dodgers have had a winning season 36 out of those 43 seasons and made the playoffs 21 of those 43 seasons. The Yankees had reached seven World Series since 1981; the Dodgers had reached four. And yet: They’d never crossed paths. Until now.

I don’t doubt that there are some of you who groaned when you realized that it would be the Dodgers and Yankees facing each other in the World Series. I get it. These are two franchises that you couldn’t escape even if you wanted to.

They play on opposites coasts in cities that are in many ways the social, cultural and financial capitals of the country, cities that are two of the most popular tourist attractions, cities that kids in every town in America dream of maybe running away to someday. They have big payrolls and equally massive ambitions, the sort of franchises (and fanbases) that are never satisfied with anything less than winning the World Series every year. They have long, rich histories; they have iconic uniforms; they have celebrity fans. No matter how much you might try to focus on your own team, you still get a little sick of the Yankees and Dodgers. It feels like they’re everywhere.

I understand all this, but I’d argue — and I suspect the television ratings we’ll see over the course of this series will agree with me on this — that this all makes you more likely to be enraptured by this series than less. You can love the Dodgers and Yankees, you can hate the Dodgers and Yankees, but you cannot, ever, ignore the Dodgers and Yankees. To truly ignore the Dodgers and Yankees, after all, would be to ignore baseball entirely.

How do you tell the story of baseball — baseball’s history, baseball’s present, baseball’s future — without telling the story of the Dodgers and the Yankees? Close your eyes and think of as many great baseball moments as you can from your lifetime. The Dodgers and Yankees pop up constantly in those memories, don’t they? How could they not? You can make an argument that the two most famous baseball players of all-time are Babe Ruth and Jackie Robinson and they are, of course, avatars for these two franchises. Heck, the two franchises once shared a city and faced off in the Fall Classic four times in the 1950s alone. (And one of those World Series featured Don Larsen’s perfect game, arguably the most famous World Series game ever.)

These two franchises are everywhere throughout history: Mickey Mantle, Derek Jeter and Lou Gehrig vs. Duke Snider, Sandy Koufax, and Fernando Valenzuela. They are what baseball is. How could anyone possibly turn away? Why would anyone want to?

And, of course, there is currently a greater concentration of superstars on these two teams at this exact second than perhaps at any other time since both teams were in the same city. The Dodgers and Yankees have four of the top-selling jerseys in baseball right now: The Dodgers have Nos. 1 and 4 (Shohei Ohtani and Mookie Betts), the Yankees Nos. 3 and 7 (Aaron Judge and Juan Soto).

How many potential Hall of Famers played for these two teams this year? Let’s see: Clayton Kershaw, Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman and Shohei Ohtani for the Dodgers; Aaron Judge, Juan Soto, Gerrit Cole (maybe?) and Giancarlo Stanton (making a case!) for the Yankees. And if you ask a person on the street to name as many active baseball players as they can, how many of them would come from these two teams? More than half, right? Maybe more?

And while there are stars on these teams who have won World Series rings before (Soto has one with the Nationals, Freeman has one with the Braves and Betts has one with the Dodgers and the Red Sox), we really haven’t seen them all together in one place like this with this level of stakes. Judge and Ohtani are going to win the MVPs this year — giving them a combined five, by the way — but not only has neither won a title before, neither has even reached the World Series. Will either have “World Series winner” on their Hall of Fame plaque? If they don’t get it this year, will they ever have a better chance than right now?

And it’s rare that teams with these track records of success and these expectations are as truly famished for a World Series championship as these two are, right now. They are both very urgent. The Yankees’ urgency is obvious: This is their first World Series appearance since 2009, and no one thought it would take nearly this long until the next one. The Yankees, with their trade for Soto in the offseason, were all-in on 2024 as their World Series year, with the jobs of the manager, the general manager and maybe some of the players on the line. The Yankees need this, and badly. It’d be crushing to get this close and fall short.

But who’s to say the Dodgers don’t need it just as badly, if not more? The Dodgers did win the World Series in 2020, not that long ago (though it may seem like it sometimes), but that was the truncated Covid-19 season, and while you could make an argument that surviving that year’s postseason gauntlet was actually harder than an ordinary year, it’s nevertheless true that the 2020 title is considered, by many, a little different. And even the players from that team lament that they didn’t really get to celebrate like they would have in a typical year. The last time the Dodgers won a title in a “normal” year was all the way back in 1988.

So how about that? Two teams we’ve gotten used to winning all the time actually each being in a position where they will be uniquely devastated to lose. Two teams that everyone knows, teams everyone is incredibly familiar with, teams everyone knows all the big names on … and everyone will want to watch. This is the 12th-ever World Series between these two teams, but the first in 43 years. It is both very familiar, and very rare. That’s a recipe for an absolutely irresistible series. How could anyone not watch?