Yankees-Dodgers round 12 is irrelevant but still interesting
While it’s true that the Yankees and Dodgers have played more times in the World Series than any other two teams (Yankees-Giants come in a distant second with seven WS meetings), the history of their prior meetings has no relation in predicting the outcome of the 2024 World Series. It’s also not as if the two teams don’t like each other, (is that the most over-used phrase in sports?), which was true in the first 11 meetings.
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The Yankees and Dodgers are set to face off when the World Series begins this Friday and MLB is getting a matchup “between its two biggest brands,” according to Jack Harris of the L.A. TIMES. In terms of overall franchise value this is true.
The Athletic’s Jayson Stark pointed out that there will be five MVPs playing in this series — Judge, Stanton, Ohtani, Betts, and Freeman. Juan Soto is not included but the five (combined) playing are the most in World Series history. Clayton Kershaw also won an MVP but is not on the Dodger’s playoff roster.
Yankees-Dodgers World Series History
You probably know that the Yankees have the better head-to-head record vs. the Dodgers when it comes to the World Series. The Bronx Bombers have won eight of the 11 meetings. When the Dodgers finally won in 1955 after six straight failures, they exorcized 71 years of demons, (they had never won a World Series since their founding even before the modern era in 1901). They did tie for a championship in 1890 as the Brooklyn Bridegrooms. Brooklyn was 0–9 in World Series before 1955. The monkey finally off their backs, the Brooklyn ‘Boys of Summer’ decamped for Los Angeles three years later.
The Yankees have won 41 World Series games vs. the Dodgers. The Dodgers have won 27. Aggregate games in the World Series is a statistic that doesn’t mean much, and yet it displays the so many years of the Dodgers trying to finally reach the top of the mountain.
Results from the 11 times Dodgers and Yankees have met in the World Series
By the time the Yankees and Dodgers first met in the 1941 series the Yankees had already won eight World Series titles (in 17 seasons).
1941 Yankees win 4–1
1943 Yankees win 4–1
1947 Yankees win 4–3
1949 Yankees win 4–1
1952 Yankees win 4–3
1953 Yankees win 4–2
1955 Dodgers finally win 4–3
1963 Dodgers win 4–0
1977 Yankees win 4–2
1978 Yankees win 4–2
1981 Dodgers win 4–2
11 World Series meetings over 41 years. The Dodgers have won three out of the past five World Series meetings between the teams since the 1955 victory. So, there’s that. But it has been 43 years since the last meeting in 1981, which was a strike shortened season played as two halves totaling 100 games. Expos/Nationals fans are still sore about it. If you want to be picky about it, two of the past three Dodger World Series championships took place in the A) the Covid season of 60 games and B) the one in 1981 (they also won in 1988). The Dodgers haven’t won a WS title in a ‘normal’ MLB season in nearly 62 years. Yes, that’s being picky.
1981 Dodgers-Yankees series was better than people remember
Fernando Valenzuela who passed away suddenly this week, started only one game in the 1981 series pitching a nine-hit, four run complete game. Fernando threw an amazing 147 pitches. Can you imagine a pitcher taking the mound today in the 9th inning having yielded four runs and having thrown 125+ pitches?
Valenzuela put the Yankees down in order in the final frame for the win. He would have started game seven had there been the need for one. I always felt a bit robbed by not having that game to watch as an epic (at least I expect it would have been epic) game seven performance from Fernando that might have vaulted that Dodger-Yankee series in the top five. Tyler Kepner of The Athletic ranked the 1981 series 11th out of 11. I humbly disagree. 1981 was also a season in which the 20-year-old ‘El Toro’ as he was called by fans, won Rookie-of-the-Year AND the Cy Young and is the only pitcher in MLB history to do that. He finished fifth in the 1981 MVP race.
Because the Dodgers avenged their 1977 and 1978 defeats in the World Series to the Yankees by winning game six so thoroughly 9–2 at Yankee Stadium that series lost some luster. After the Yankees won games one and two at home behind Ron ‘Gator’ Guidry and Tommy John, with HOFer Rich Gossage saving both games, the Dodgers woke up and scored a total of 24 runs in the next four games to subdue the Yankees but aside from game six, it was very hotly contested. Games three, four, and five were one-run victories for L.A. before the Dodgers delivered the coup de gras in game six.
I was living in Los Angeles in 1977 and 1978 and because I was from New York, by default I represented the opposition and the East Coast — the Yankees, even though I was not, and am still not, a Yankee fan. But I was screaming with New York pride when Reggie Jackson hit his three home runs on first pitches in game six in 1977 rubbing it into my college friends from USC. By the time the 1981 series began, I had relocated back to New York and then was the representative of my friends to root for the Dodgers since I had been in Los Angeles for four plus years and was now a West Coast guy. I am also not a Dodger fan and never really have been, but I did watch them a lot while living there.
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1981 doesn’t matter now
43 years later, Aaron Judge, Juan Soto, Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman, and Shohei Ohtani, likely all know much about the 1981 World Series. They are baseball players and are aware that their teams have played each other in the World Series a bunch of times. Particularly since EVERYONE is talking about that. But I daresay that aside from Valenzuela, Guidry and Gossage, they’d be hard pressed to name any other players from that 1981 series. Was Reggie Jackson still on the Yankees? Yes. Steve Garvey, he was a Dodger for a long time was he on that 1981 team? Yes. And the Dodgers had that long standing infield of Cey, Bill Russell, and Davey Lopes, right? Were they still there? Yes. But Lou Piniella, (who batted .438 in that Series and Graig Nettles (hero of the 1978 series between the teams), are both too often forgotten by all but the most hardcore fans. Pedro Guerrero was the World Series MVP. Remember Burt ‘Happy’ Hooton? How about Jerry Ruess? Both started games for the Dodgers in the 1981 series. Steve Howe who later pitched for the Yankees won a game for the Dodgers. It doesn’t matter now. This generation of Dodgers and Yankees will make their own history, and I can’t wait to watch!
About the Author: Mark Kolier along with his son Gordon co-hosts a baseball podcast called ‘Almost Cooperstown’. He also has written baseball-related articles that can be accessed on Medium.com and Substack.com.
