MLB baseball playoffs. Big Apple vs City of Angels – Sports

The Los Angeles Dodgers sent an email to their fans last week that drew immense ridicule. October had now arrived, it said, and it was high time to stock up on Dodgers gear for the baseball playoffs. The problem: On the day of the email, the club could have already been kicked out of these playoffs, of all places against the Californian rival Padres from San Diego. “Typical Dodgers,” caustic LA-Times-Columnist Bill Plaschke, less a journalist than a megaphone of general fan opinion: “A billion invested and already on the way to the winter break!” Of course, no one forgets and forgives as quickly as the sports fan, So Plaschke wrote after the comeback and the associated advancement: “The playoff demons are gone!”

So the Dodgers are in the semi-finals, and that leads to several interesting constellations: The billion thing wasn’t an exaggeration. The Dodgers awarded contracts worth a total of $1.3 billion during the winter break; The highest-paying one is the Japanese mega-player Shohei Ohtani, who will receive a total of $700 million over ten years. The fact that the Dodgers are not the most expensive team in the league this year is mainly due to the structure of the contracts, which guarantee exceptional talents like Ohtani, Freddie Freeman and Mookie Betts the lion’s share of their salaries at the end of their terms. Official salary costs for 2024 therefore: $241 million.

The highest paid team in the league this year is the New York Mets because they have to do what the Dodgers still do, namely pay professionals an incredible amount of money in the winter of their careers. That is currently 318 million dollars. Oh yes, these Mets play the Dodgers in the semifinals, after the first two games in Los Angeles the best-of-seven series is tied at 1-1.

New York versus Los Angeles, Big Apple versus City of Angels. That’s always tingling US sports; in baseball even more so because the Dodgers were based in the New York borough of Brooklyn from their founding in 1883 until 1957 and the nickname means that fans had to dodge the trams there to get to the stadium. Now add to that the fact that this select Dodgers squad won the World Series win mustthe first since… well, that depends on how you read it. In US sports, they have generally agreed to give all triumphs during the Covid pandemic a star due to difficult conditions, insofar as the tournament or season was held in its entirety, like the US Open in tennis. When it comes to Covid-shortened seasons – in which the Dodgers won their last championship for the time being in 2020 – purists, on the other hand, frown. Bill Plaschke also mentioned that the recent win against the Padres meant the first playoff advancement at home in eleven years “in the presence of the fans.”

Two thoughts accompany the Mets: “OMG”, which stands for “Oh my God” and thus amazement at one’s own strength – and is the title of the feel-good pop song by Cuban Mets center back José Iglesias. And as a result: If we’re here, we want to win. “We don’t give a shit about anything,” said the same Iglesias after the advance against the Phillies. So it’s a team on a high playing against the team with the best record in the main round, and what that means could already be seen in these first two games in Los Angeles: The Dodgers had against the Padres in the last two games as well as in the first Did not allow an opposing point in the game against the Mets and broke the 58-year-old record for most playoff game periods without opposing runs (33) during the 9-0 win at the start. They are outstanding in every defensive position, and that can now be clearly seen.

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Except: The Mets don’t give a shit about anything. Francisco Lindor was the Mets’ first batter in game two; he ended the Dodgers’ zero-point run with a home run. Just one period later it was 6-0 after five more runs. In the end, the Mets also survived a tricky situation in the sixth period – a Dodgers home run would have equalized with two players on the clock – and maintained a 7-3 lead with strong defense and nerves. Columnist Bill Plaschke’s fan megaphone was turned on again: “That wasn’t a baseball game, that was an unexpected low blow.” Now everyone is flying to New York for games three and four on Wednesday and Thursday; Based on the results so far, the series is completely open.

The Cleveland Guardians will play the second semifinal against the New York Yankees. Should the Yankees advance – they won the first semi-final game 5-2 – there would either be the so-called “Subway Series” in New York: the Mets are based in Queens, the Yankees in the Bronx. Or the Dodgers and Yankees will meet in the finals for the first time since 1981. There are probably only two logos on baseball caps that are as unmistakable and as inextricably linked to their metropolises as the Dodgers-LA and the Yankees-NY.

Of course, the Dodgers have long since sent an email: Please stock up on clothes with this LA on them.