Pitting Aaron Judge against Shohei Ohtani, and rekindling a historic rivalry, New York vs. Los Angeles would make for an epic Fall Classic.
What they cannot do is cast the World Series as they dream it, like a Hollywood producer. That arrangement is still left to the baseball gods.
Dodgers-Yankees is the algorithmic ideal. It has been a long time coming. From 1941-1981, the Dodgers played the Yankees in the World Series 11 times in 41 seasons. Now that’s a proven franchise hit.The last Dodgers-Yankees happening, in 1981—an eon ago in media terms—drew the third biggest audience in World Series history: 41.4 million viewers. It was just short of the all-time record: 44.3 million viewers three years earlier for … Dodgers-Yankees.
This season the Dodgers and Yankees are the chalk to get to the World Series. Both are No. 1 seeds. But then, with expanded playoffs, how often do teams with the outright best record in each league meet in the World Series? Not often. In the 27 full seasons in the Wild Card Era, it has happened only two times: 1999 and 2013 .
Ohtani, 30, has met every other challenge with historic brilliance. In the first meaningful September, Ohtani hit .393 and became the first player ever in the month with 10 homers and 16 stolen bases. He is the first 50-50 player in history. How big would an Ohtani-Judge meeting be? It would bring back stories of when Willie Mays and the San Francisco Giants met Mickey Mantle and the Yankees in the 1962 World Series, when both superstars were in their prime and near the ages Ohtani and Judge are now.
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