Ohtani’s Dodgers vs. Judge’s Yankees Is Star-studded MLB World Series of a Lifetime

Whatever else the 2024 World Series ends up being, it is already historic.

It will, after all, reunite the Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Yankees for Round 12 of the most storied Fall Classic fight in history.

The Yankees were already awaiting the Dodgers when Game 6 of the National League Championship Series got going at Dodger Stadium on Sunday evening. Even if it took seven pitchers to get it done, the Dodgers ultimately punched their own ticket to the Fall Classic with a 10-5 win over the New York Mets.

Dodgers vs. Yankees just feels right, if for no other reason than these were the two best teams in their respective leagues this season. The Dodgers led the National League with 98 wins. The Yankees led the American League with 94 wins. That simple, really.

With the notable exception of two-time MVP and $700 million man Shohei Ohtani, the World Series isn’t unfamiliar territory for the Dodgers. This is their fourth trip to the Fall Classic just since 2017.

“It’s the place that I’ve dreamt of playing all my life,” a jubilant Ohtani said after the game.

Nonetheless, the words “comeback” and “throwback” apply to the 2024 World Series.

For 2022 AL MVP and two-time MLB home run leader Aaron Judge and the Yankees, it marks the end of a 14-year absence from the World Series. And while the Dodgers and Yankees have gone head-to-head in the World Series 11 times before, the last bout before was all the way back in 1981.

While we wait to see what kind of history will be made, what is absolutely, no-doubt-about-it for sure is that the 2024 World Series will be a hit.

This World Series Is Already a Huge Win for MLB

Baseball is dying? Psh. They always say that, and it’s never true.

Still, it’s not out of bounds to highlight the World Series’ decline as a cultural touchstone.

It used to be that annual viewership of the World Series could only be measured by the tens of millions. The Dodgers and Yankees were there for the peak in 1978, when over 44 million people tuned in.

The World Series has been bleeding viewers ever since, first in little droplets and, more recently, in great big gushes. It hasn’t been viewed by 20 million people since 2016, and the 2023 World Series was the least viewed of all time.

This is surely indicative of a general loss of interest among consumers, but more so of how the proliferation of entertainment options during the 21st century has scattered eyeballs and scrambled attention spans. Monoculture is dead. And with it, any hope Major League Baseball has of reclaiming its former market share.

Yet even if it is nothing else, what is happening now is a taste of the good ol’ days.

Interest in the MLB playoffs has skyrocketed this October, with Jared Diamond of The Wall Street Journal reporting a 20 percent increase in viewership. The quality of the games and faster pace have helped, though it bodes especially well for the World Series that market sizes are also a factor.

New York and Los Angeles are the two biggest media markets in North America, and that alone ought to have MLB wondering if the Fall Classic could at least double the viewership (i.e., barely 9 million) of last year’s series. Moreover, the presence of both Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto should ensure that millions more watch from Japan.

In theory, everyone will be tuning in to see the games. In practice, they’ll be tuning in to see more specific targets.

“It all starts and ends,” MLB commissioner Rob Manfred said to Diamond, “with the players.”

The Brightest Stars in MLB Will Be Out

Given the markets involved, perhaps it won’t be surprising that the 2024 World Series will feature about $650 million worth of players.

And yet, you can be forgiven if your first thought was “That’s it?”

Indeed, five MVP winners (Ohtani, Judge, Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman, Giancarlo Stanton) and a Cy Young Award winner (Gerrit Cole) will participate in the 2024 World Series. Ohtani, Judge, Betts, and Juan Soto also boast top-selling jerseys.

Ohtani and Judge are the titans of baseball right now, and both are at the height of their powers. Ohtani is fresh off chartering the 50-50 club, while Judge had a higher OPS this season than he did when he set an AL record with 62 home runs in 2022.

There will otherwise be the ongoing subplot of how many zeroes Soto can add to his free-agent price tag with further postseason heroics. Especially after his pennant-clinching homer in Game 5 of the ALCS, even $600 million doesn’t sound outrageous as things stand now.

For his part, Stanton will look to further cement himself as an all-time playoff slugger after winning ALCS MVP honors. And for his, Betts is adding his best postseason yet to a Hall of Fame-worthy resume.

Even now, as we’re all still on the outside looking in, the notion that there will be this much star power in one World Series feels special. And not just in a must-see TV kind of way. More so in a Living History kind of way. Like something amazing is the only possible outcome.

And if so, well, that would be very on-brand for a Dodgers vs. Yankees World Series.

The Dodgers and Yankees Have Hard Acts to Follow

Some prefer to argue that a rivalry isn’t the real deal unless both sides are landing punches. And by this logic, the early history of the Dodgers and Yankees in the World Series provides a good example of what a rivalry isn’t.

The Yankees were the victors in each of the first five Fall Classic showdowns between the two clubs. And for Dodgers fans, that was a lot of heartbreak packed into a mere 12-year span between 1941 and 1953.

The then-Brooklyn Dodgers finally broke through in 1955. The New York Times marked the mood of the moment as follows: “Not even the staunchest American League diehard could begrudge Brooklyn its finest hour.”

The score in head-to-head World Series matchups since then: Dodgers 3, Yankees 3.

It is astonishing how many all-time great baseball moments were born in those six series. Jackie Robinson stealing home in 1955. Don Larsen’s perfect game in 1956. Sandy Koufax striking out 15 in 1963. And, of course, Reggie Jackson going off for his trio of homers in Game 6 in 1977.

Clearly, it is not merely because of frequency that all those Dodgers vs. Yankees World Series still loom as large as they do. You can’t have a storied rivalry without, well, stories.

There are any number of ways that the 2024 World Series could grow the legend. Ohtani, Judge, Soto and Betts are about equally good bets to have their own “Mr. October” moment. Then again, maybe Stanton’s post-prime revenge tour will keep going. Or, perhaps it’ll be Cole authoring a manifesto on why starting pitchers deserve to live.

Heck, it seems foolish to even put it past NLCS MVP Tommy Edman continuing his out-of-nowhere run as the hottest hitter on the planet.

Regardless of how it comes together, it is not a fool’s errand to bank on the 2024 World Series to form lasting memories. Suffice it to say you don’t need to look at the DraftKings odds (Dodgers -120, Yankees +100) to see that this series has “Classic” written all over it.

It is simply too big to disappoint. It is too big to go quietly. It is too big to fail.

It is Dodgers vs. Yankees. What more could you want?