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It’s autumn: the leaves are falling in Central Park, the beaches of Venice are empty and the US baseball season is drawing to a close. In the Italian night between Friday and Saturday the World Series Of Major League Baseball (MLB)one of the most heartfelt and followed sporting events in the United States. This year the final has a sweeter flavor than usual and a unique charm. This is because history has confronted us Los Angeles Dodgers e New York Yankees: not only the two best teams of the season, but also two of the most important brands in American sport and beyond, representing the two most populous and culturally important cities in the country.
«The World Series is played every year. But World Series like these come about as frequently as Halley’s Comet», writes the site The Athletic, affiliated with New York Times. The epic nature of this challenge is sending the entire overseas media system into fibrillation, at least until the elections on November 5th. A literary potential that has its own historical component – dating back to the beginning of professional baseball between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries – and a pure field, technical one, which will bring out the bright green of the Dodger and Yankee Stadium.
Tyson vs Paul, the date of the most awaited match of the year is here. Time and where to see it on TV and streaming
Ohtani vs Judge
“This. It doesn’t. It happens. Never”Always The Athletic thus summarizes the uniqueness of the challenge in the challenge that will begin tonight: the one between Shoei Ohtani of the Dodgers and Aaron Judge of the Yankees. «How many times have two MVPs (best players in the championship, ndr) standouts show up in the same World Series, on opposing teams, at the height of their MVP greatness and clearly towering above the rest of their sport in terms of star power?” the American site continues. Well, this never happens in baseball. LeBron James and Stephen Curry have faced each other several times in the NBA finals, but this is like Messi and Ronaldo clashing in the Champions League final (it only happened in 2009). It would also be the first title for both of them.
Othani vs. Judge is this. The first, born in ’94, comes from Japan and in December 2023 signed a ten-year contract worth 700 million dollars. A unique talent who has given hope to a sport that has been losing spectators and popularity for years. In 2021, when he was still playing for Los Angeles’ other team, the Angels, Ohtani was the first player to be called up to the All-Star Game as both a pitcher and a hitter. His being “two-way” has led many to compare him to what is considered the greatest icon of the sport, Babe Ruth.
Judgeon the other hand, is a pure hitter, but one of the strongest in recent history. He was the player with the most home runs in the American League three times. Over the seasons he became a true idol of Yankees Stadium, breaking records of team legends such as Ruth and Joe Di Maggio. The most successful players in the league haven’t won since 2009, an eternity for them, an opportunity to become a legend for Judge.
Dodgers vs Yankees: che fu derby
The World Series 2024 they also have a particular flavor due to the history that the two teams carry with them and which speak a little of that of the entire United States and its two largest cities. The Yankees were actually born in Baltimore in 1901, because the Giants were already in New York (now in San Francisco), who with their influence blocked the founding of a team in the same city. They managed to move to the Big Apple two years later under the name New York Highlanders. New York sportswriter Jim Price, however, coined the unofficial Yankees nickname in early 1904 because it was easier to fit into newspaper headlines. It became official in 1913.
On the other side of the Hudson River, which separates the island of Manhattan from Long Island, there were other cumbersome neighbors waiting for them: i Dodgers di Brooklynwhich at the time of the team’s founding was a separate municipality from New York. The name derives from “Trolley Dodgers”, or “those who dodge trams”; a reference to the massive urbanization of the city, among the first with a public transport system in the USA.
The years leading up to the Second World War were one of the historical highs for the Yankees. Years in which the legends of three of the club’s most important players were born: Babe Ruth, Lou Gerhig and Joe DiMaggio. It wasn’t the same for the Brooklyn Dodgers, who made history immediately after the world war, but not for a trophy. In 1947 they hired Jackie Robinson, the first African-American player in Major League Baseball. At the time, blacks were relegated to the Negro League due to segregationist laws. Robinson led the Dodgers to redemption over the rival Yankees in 1955, when the two teams met in the World Series in a cross-Hudson derby.
The joy for the fans did not last long. In 1957 ownership moved the team to Los Angeles. A move that the citizens of Brooklyn still call a “theft” today, but which turned out to be a success. The Dodgers became one of the most successful teams in American baseball and challenged the Yankees in the World Series four more times: in ’63 (Los Angeles won), in ’77, in ’78 (New York won) and, for the last time before this night, in 1981 (Los Angeles victory).
Many Brooklyn Dodgers fans, after the team’s move, shifted their affection to the newly formed New York Mets – beaten in the National League final by the Dodgers. This year they will cheer for the Los Angelians who broke his heart. All to go against the damn Yankees.
Where to watch the World Series
The first match, from Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, will be live on Sky Sport Uno, Sky Sport Arena and streaming on NOW on the night between Friday 25th and Saturday 26th October, starting at 1.30am. The series is played as a best of 7 games.
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