This is not clickbait. It’s engagement bait. It’s subscription bait. This is the “sign up for auto-renewal, then get addicted to Wordle and NYT Cooking” bait. But it’s also a deeper truth that resonates with many baseball fans, and it goes something like this:
New York Yankees vs. Los Angeles Dodgers is the most boring World Series game possible. This might be the most boring game of the World Series Neverwhich seems hyperbolic until you start looking at previous confrontations and realize that most of them didn’t have the full force of social media or the Pundit industrial complex behind them. Yes, I realize that articles like this are part of the problem, but inevitability is the only possible outcome.
Please note that this is not the same as the worse World Series game possible. For heaven’s sake, not by far. The worst World Series matchup would be the Chicago White Sox vs. the Colorado Rockies, with the latter team being heavy favorites. In the 2024 World Series, several future Hall of Famers will play, most of them in their prime, doing unreal things with and with baseball. This is a very good World Series if you enjoy watching great players and demonstrating their baseball abilities. In fact, I can’t wait to watch the baseball game, and you should too.
That doesn’t mean it won’t. boringHowever. Let’s count the paths. Haters, get together. We have some hate to do.
Been there, done that
This world series is an episode of The Simpsons from season 43 in which Homer gets a new job. It’s technically a new episode, but it’s a tired trope.
Oh, wow, the only cities that matter in the only country that matters, fighting each other. Look at all the celebrities in the stands, everyone. Have you ever noticed how different these two cities and lifestyles are? New Yorkers are all like “Hey, I’m walking here” and Los Angeles is like “Is that Bobby DeNiro?” Hold my little dog, I’ll say hello,” ha ha, it’s funny because it’s true. Put a brick wall behind me, throw me a microphone and turn on a spotlight. This material is too good to waste.
It may be a new Yankee Stadium, but we won’t be able to escape the ghosts of baseball’s past in this series. (Luke Hales/Getty Images)
Even if you can block out the noise generated by two cultural centers getting even more attention, there’s the part where baseball has already been done. When my mother was growing up in the 1940s and 1950s, she thought the World Series was just what they called it when the Yankees and Dodgers played each other, just like the Iron Bowl is what they call the games of Alabama/Auburn football. She doesn’t remember it as something that made her laugh; she shakes her head regretfully. That’s how often the Yankees and Dodgers played in the World Series.
This confrontation occurred in 1947, 1949, 1952, 1953, 1955 and 1956, and it was enough for seven generations. It then happened again twice in the 1970s and once in the 1980s. Yankees vs. Dodgers is a throwback to those dark, binary times, where it felt like no one else had a chance. Mainly because they didn’t.
This is the match Fox wanted decades
Every October, I warm my heart thinking about the Fox executives who lie awake at night worrying about the Cleveland Guardians and Milwaukee Brewers World Series. These idiots and rednecks don’t think about the excitement a pennant would bring to regions that haven’t enjoyed one enough (or any of them at all). They don’t think about specific matchups or baseball-related quirks. They think about eyeballs and star power.
And there’s something there. There will be more eyeballs for that specific game because there will be more people tuning in, and they will be tuning in because they feel like there’s a greater chance they’ll be entertained by this World Series . Craig Calcaterra cleverly compared the combination of high ratings and noise complaints to Yogi Berra’s famous quip: “No one goes there anymore, it’s too crowded.”
Except I always knew what Berra meant by that. People he I didn’t want to deal with it. Mick and Billy Martin didn’t need to be seen. They didn’t need the attention that a super-trendy nightclub provides. They were purists. And I realize I’m using famous Yankees to represent cool people in this analogy, which means this will be difficult to solve. But that’s what paragraph breaks are for.
But more than all that is the idea that TV executives will be happy. This is how they make their money:
They make money by eroding your mental health. Their homes are built, brick by brick, from the ashes of your gray matter. They wanted Yankees against Dodgers because it would mean they could tell more people that they can have the kind of Wi-Fi that lets them take ventriloquism lessons in their attic, where there used to be a neutral point. It’s the World Series that attracts the casuals, the barely interested people, the people who will be surprised that there’s a pitch clock now. They’ll retire after an inning once they remember baseball isn’t for them, but not before they realize they can finally do ballet in their man caves.
Sometimes I fall asleep and think “His father is the prosecutor” out of nowhere. It’s a piece of my brain that breaks and flies away, like a calving ice floe, never to be the same again. Someone has to pay. Preferably, these people would pay by getting every Guardians vs Brewers World Series possible.
I don’t care about the Yankees and Dodgers. They insist on themselves
These two franchises are looking in the mirror when no one is looking. They also do it when everyone is watching. Monuments and plaques, a sense of history that is deserved but still manages to be over-the-top at the same time. No mascots. Jerseys that have hardly changed in a century.
They insist on themselves. They think they are better than you and your team. And, of course, getting to the World Series, that’s technically true, but they don’t have to stress so much about themselves all the time. It’s much funnier when teams drunk with history continue to make each other so close and lose year after year.
Except for the 49ers. That’s enough. There’s probably a statute of limitations with that one. It’s just not funny anymore.
Everyone will talk about the payroll of the two teams, but they will miss the essential point.
Yes, the Yankees and Dodgers have more resources than any other team. They spend more money. They are spoiled and so are their fans. They have advantages that other teams don’t have with more visibility, cultural cachet, history and purchasing power. People will talk about how much the Dodgers committed to players this offseason (technically over a billion dollars if you don’t adjust for inflation and deferred salaries), and people will talk about how much Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton and Gerrit Cole will win. It’s inevitable.
But it lets other owners off the hook. Mookie Betts is with the Dodgers because Fenway Sports Group Holdings LLC was concerned about how his salary would affect their ability to add players to Liverpool and drivers to RFK Racing. They made a business decision and they absolutely deserve to feel bad about it. The Pittsburgh Pirates let Barry Bonds go because they lacked vision. The Chicago Cubs let Greg Maddux go because they didn’t realize how eager the North Side was to bring the team into the regional identity. The Washington Nationals have not committed to Bryce Harper Or Juan Soto because they thought they would find another teenage outfielder with Hall of Fame talent at the Teenage Outfielder with Hall of Fame Talent store.
All these owners are weenies. They’re sometimes pragmatic and sometimes silly, but they’re mostly just little ones. They should spend money on good players and keep them away from the Yankees and Dodgers! Especially the players they write and develop.
More people should say, “The San Diego Padres had the right idea” instead of “We need to stop the Yankees and Dodgers from doing this,” and failure to come to that revelation will make the speech even more tedious.
Additionally, the Padres should have kept Juan Soto as well. They’re not out of the woods here. Michael King is cool, but come on. Look what you did.
A good World Series? Maybe. A major World Series is possible. Hell, give us some Game 7 hijinks, and this could be considered one of the classics. Shohei Ohtani, returning to the mound in the 19th inning of Game 7, in front of a stunned Dodger Stadium crowd, because there are simply no other pitchers available and he is willing to make the sacrifice. All he has to do is go through Juan Soto, Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton.
We can dream.
But while it has the potential to be the best World Series, it’s guaranteed to be the most boring World Series possible. The wrong people have wanted this for years. The winning team will throw the trophy into an Arrogance juicer and receive a cold drink, even if they weren’t actually out of one. The losing team will feel even more entitled this time next year. And at every moment, before every round, with every joke and comment broadcast before and after the match, we will tell you how special it all is.
Goalkeepers on six. They have the bullpen, even if the Brewers’ roster is underrated. What a beautiful, simple, boring dream that would have been.
(Top photo illustration by Sean Reilly / Athletics: Orlando Ramirez / Getty Images; Mary DeCicco/MLB Photos via Getty Images; Katelyn Mulcahy/Getty Images; Carmen Mandato/Getty Images; New York Yankees/Getty Images)