Dodgers fans delight in a classic comeback to end memorable championship clincher
After hours of deep-down drama, it was a big blue blast.
“Thank you, Mom and Dad, for making me a Dodgers fan,” declared Jenna Ortega, a resident of, where else, Los Angeles.
Decked out in Dodger Blue garb, fans rolled into sports bars, restaurants and pretty much anyplace with a TV on Wednesday evening, Oct. 30, to cheer Angelenos’ beloved National League champions as they clinched a World Series title over their American League rivals, the dreaded New York Yankees.
Coming back from a 5-0 deficit, the Dodgers recorded one of the most memorable comebacks in baseball history — in truly a game for the ages. And the fans loved it all.
“For me it’s a family tradition,” said Rachel Boyd of Echo Park. “My great grandmother, my grandmother, my mom —- just trying to see another World Series win for 2024.”
Fireworks filled the skies around Southern California as Dodgers fans exulted in the victory. Motorists stopped at intersections to honk their horns and hoot it up. Fans doused one another with champagne, beer, soda pop and anything else at hand. Media reports described large gatherings at LA Live and in East Los Angeles. LAPD launched a citywide tactical alert in response to widespread championship celebrations.
“The Dodgers did it again! We love L.A.!” said Debbie Vandermeulen. “That was a great game!”
Playoff fever has gripped the region the past couple of weeks as the National League champions survived a fraught series against the division rival San Diego Pirates and then dispatched the New York Mets to win the pennant — and advance to the World Series in a classic Major League matchup.
And how did Dodgers fans feel Thursday night? “Ecstatic,” said Angeleno Nelson Rony. “Two days after (legendary Dodgers pitcher) Fernando Valenzuela passed away, it feels like everything came together for us. And it feels like we finished strong, like we started in honor of Valenzuela.”
A victory parade celebrating the Dodgers’ World Series title will be held Friday morning in downtown Los Angeles, along with a “special ticketed celebration” at Dodger Stadium, the team announced tonight. Exact details of the events were not immediately announced.
The parade, however, is expected to begin at Los Angeles City Hall, 200 N. Spring St., moving south on Spring Street, then west on First Street and south on Grand Avenue and west on Fifth Street, ending in the area of Fifth and Figueroa streets.
There was no immediate information available about the process for securing tickets to the stadium event.
On Wednesday, bars, restaurants and living rooms all over the Southland were packed in anticipation of Game 5, with the Dodgers leading the series, 3-1.
At Far Bar in Los Angeles’ Little Tokyo, the nightspot was packed as the first pitch was thrown. Fans chanted “Shohei! Shohei! Shohei!” in honor of Dodgers star Shohei Otani.
Things didn’t get off to a great start for the Blue Crew.
Groans and booing erupt from the crowd after Aaron Judge and Jazz Chisholm hit back to back home runs and the Yankees leap to an early 3-0 lead.
“Rough start but I think we can rally,” said Jeremy Stephenson of East Hollywood, hunkered down for the game at Little Joy in Echo Park.
Stephenson watched Tuesday’s 11-4 loss from the same spot. “Everyone was excited,” he said.
“The game just didn’t end the way we wanted,” he said, clearly hoping against a repeat performance.
“It’s still early, only the first inning,” said Carlos Argueta of East Hollywood. “We can come back. Our offense has to wake up.”
Some fans, however, were clearly experiencing some stress, including Leanna Robinson of Pasadena.
“People are saying that they want the Dodgers to lose tonight so they’ll win at home,” she said. “They want to jinx us — and they may get what they want.”
Despite the 5-0 shortfall, Robert Chavez wanted the Yankees to beware. “My feeling is that every person that has any sports understanding know that no one comes back from a 3-0 deficit.”
The mood darkened as the Dodgers fell behind, 5-0.
Aptly for such a roller coaster of a season, the Dodgers rallied to tie the game, 5-5, in the fifth inning.
“My blood pressure is through the roof,” said Ramona Mati, from the San Fernando Valley, as the Dodgers roared back into the game.
Gatherings all over town erupted after Freddie Freeman drove in two of those runs. “Freddie! Freddie!” chants broke out.
“We want them to win now,” said Misty Navarro, a lifelong Dodgers fan and Highland Park resident.
By mid-game, the ups and downs were starting to take their toll on the crowds.
“Today is the quietest — and the loudest — I’ve ever seen this bar,” said Di Barbadillo, who lives in Little Tokyo, not far from Far Bar.
Sara Cazares of Echo Park was ready for any scenario, so long as the Dodgers win the series: “Worst case scenario,” she said, “we win in Dodger Stadium.”
As the game headed into the seventh inning, the crowd at Little Joy continued to grow, with more than 100 fans in the bar and all of them focused on each pitch.
Each pitch call that went against the Dodgers sparked a shout of disbelief, while each call that went their way earned vibrant shouts of approval.
“I was crying blue when we were doing bad, but now I’m back to my normal state,” said Fernando Avila of Grant Park.
As the Yankees jumped back in front, 6-5, the mood swung again.
And, in a game that slowly evolved into a World series classic, the Dodgers used two sacrifice flies to retake the lead, 7-6.
“Oh my god, it was incredible,” declared Jen Hathwell of Altadena. “It was incredible!”
“It’s exciting,” Boyd said of the game. “I feel like we’ve been ahead since Game One, but I’ve also wanted a little bit of action.”
She surely got her wish. It was all coming down to the final innings.
The crowd chanted “Two more outs! Two more outs!” after Yankees’ Anthony Volpe struck out to lead off the bottom of the ninth.
Another strikeout put the Dodgers one out from the title.
And one more “K” — and L.A. wore the crown. Walker Buehler, a longstanding Dodgers hero, struck out Alex Verdugo for the final out.
And that ending got the party started for L.A. fans.
A Far Bar, free champagne was handed out as fans spilled out into the streets of Little Tokyo. They were greeted by honking cars as motorists pulled over to join in the celebration as a mammoth mural of Ohtani loomed overhead on the side of the towering Miyako Hotel.
For more than a decade, the Dodgers have been among baseball’s best. They’ve made the postseason the last 12 years, winning the National League West all but once during that span.
And the season they fell short of the division title, in 2021, they still won a then-franchise record 106 games — a mark they broke a year later, when they won 111 games.
The Dodgers have also made the World Series four times during that span, including this year. But they only have one Commissioner’s Trophy to show for it. And that trophy never had much luster because of circumstances outside of the Dodgers control: They won the World Series in 2020, a year in which the COVID-19 pandemic shortened the regular season from a 162-game marathon to a 60-game sprint. Fans were absent from the stands for most of the postseason, though a smattering were allowed during the National League Championship Series and the World Series, both of which were played at a neutral site in Texas.
That ring elicited euphoria among fans, to be sure. But there was no parade, no chance for fans to shower the team with adoration and gratitude. And for many non-Dodgers fans, the championship carries an asterisk.
The last time the Dodgers won the World Series in a full season, meanwhile, was in 1988.
That World Series, against the superior-on-paper Oakland Athletics, could soon be forever linked to this year’s, should the 2024 blue crew finish the job. During Game 1 of the 1988 Series, the underdog Dodgers were down 4-3 in the bottom of the ninth inning.
There was one man on, two outs and future Hall of Fame closer Dennis Eckersley on the mound. Out of the tunnel and up the dugout steps emerged Kirk Gibson, the Dodgers’ hobbled MVP.
Despite having two bad legs, Gibson worked the count full. Then, on the eighth pitch of the at bat, Gibson swung at a backdoor slider — and sent the ball into the frenzied right field stands. The Dodgers won 5-4. And they would go on to brush aside the demoralized A’s in five games.
On Friday, this current Dodgers team also found themselves down a run with two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning.
They weren’t the underdogs this time, per se, with most experts predicting the battle of the MLB bluebloods would go seven games. But things were less than ideal.
They had the bases loaded, sure, but their last hope was also a hobbled hero: First baseman Freeman, who has been playing with a severely sprained ankle for the better part of a month. He stepped to the plate having only had one extra base hit all postseason — a triple earlier that night.
Freeman swung at the first pitch. It went high and far into the night, landing in almost the same spot as Gibson’s home run 36 years before.
The crowd erupted, also like 36 years before. And television announcer Joe Davis, somehow keeping a level head amid the chaos, marked the moment by quoting the words the late, great Dodgers announcer Vin Scully used in describing Gibson’s walk-off blast: “She is … gone!”
The Dodgers then beat the Yankees in Games 2 and 3, setting the stage for Tuesday night.
Yet, even though the Yankees have struggled offensively this series — and, at times, have looked dejected and demoralized — they are still the Bronx Bombers. They are still at home.
And they did what many Dodger fans thought was unlikely — win Game 4 and become the first World Series team to overcome a 3-0 deficit.
The Yankees once again unleashed their familiar devastation onto the Dodgers — and all those watching, whether from home or out at a sports bar — as the team widened its lead throughout the game. The Dodgers were all but done for at the bottom of the eighth inning after the Yankees hit a three-run homer, pushing their lead 11-4 by the end of the game.
But the Yankees’ purported comeback was snuffed out by the Dodgers’ big royal rally on Wednesday.
The city’s mayor summed it all up:
“Tonight, we showed the world that Los Angeles is made of champions,” Karen Bass posted on social media. “Congratulations to the @Dodgers on tonight’s win. Looking forward to seeing you back in L.A.!”