In the 1940s and 1950s, “wait ‘til next year!” was the rallying cry of Brooklyn Dodgers fans. They won the National League pennant in 1941, 1947, 1949, 1952, and 1953, and lost the World Series each of those times. To make matters worse, the Dodgers lost every single one of those World Series to the crosstown New York Yankees.
The Dodgers will wait ‘til next year once more
Thursday’s Say Hey, Baseball looks at Game 7 of the 2017 World Series, the Dodgers’ talented core, and the Astros finally winning it all.
Photo by David McNew/Getty Images
They also suffered a horrible collapse in 1951 that cost them the pennant to the New York Giants — you know something about this particular moment in baseball history, given it was heard ‘round the world. It was both an incredible time to be a Dodgers’ fan, and an infinitely frustrating one since they could never go all the way.
In 1955, “next year” finally came, and Brooklyn toppled the Bronx Bombers for their first World Series championship. It seemed impossible given all of the near-misses and failures, but it finally happened.
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The modern-day Dodgers can relate to their Brooklyn ancestors, even if they’re now located in Los Angeles. These Dodgers last won the World Series in 1988: since then, they were eliminated in the NLDS four times between 1995 and 2006, winning exactly one game in the process. They made it to four separate National League Championship Series between 2008 and 2016, and the closest they got to the World Series each time was a Game 6. Just for good measure, in 2014 and 2015, the Dodgers didn’t even make it out of the NLDS.
The 2017 season was different, though, or at least it seemed like it was. The Dodgers led the majors in wins. They had enough starting pitching that Clayton Kershaw wasn’t going to spend the NLCS gasping for air in between his short-rest pitches. They finally won the NLCS, their first such series victory since 1988, and they were in the World Series again.
Los Angeles won Game 1, and it was as good as everyone had dreamed the moment would be. Everything went downhill from there, though: the Dodgers dropped Game 2 and Game 3, and from there, they were playing catchup. The Astros might not even be better than the Dodgers, but they were better in a decisive Game 7, and that’s enough to make Dodgers fans have to wait ‘til next year once again.
Maybe next year, Kenley Jansen won’t throw a flat 0-2 pitch down the middle of the zone that costs the Dodgers the game. Maybe next year, Yu Darvish won’t falter in consecutive World Series starts, and will look more like the guy who helped them get there in the first place. Maybe next year, Yasiel Puig will make the decision to swing 1/100th of a second faster, and one of those foul balls hit directly behind him will end up in the bleachers instead.
Dodgers fans are used to waiting, and while it’s not fair, nothing in baseball ever is. All you can do is wait ‘til next year, or give up. The Dodgers will be back next year: Cody Bellinger will be a year older and wiser, and maybe with a smaller hole in his swing. Clayton Kershaw is going to be just 30 years old. There will be more money to spend as Andre Ethier and Carl Crawford and others hit free agency — the Dodgers will be back, and they’ll be better, and then, maybe it’ll finally be next year again.
- The Astros used to be so bad. Like, you had to be there to understand how bad they were bad, but no one was watching them so does anyone truly understand how bad they were? That’s all over now, and they’re World Series champions for the first time in franchise history.
- George Springer didn’t win the World Series with his three-run homer, not when all it took was two runs to defeat the Dodgers. However, it was an emphatic nail in the coffin containing the 2017 Dodgers, and a record-tying blast to boot.
- Springer, unsurprisingly, won the World Series MVP.
- Now if you want a surprising postgame moment, it came when Carlos Correa proposed to his girlfriend during his on-field interview.
- As Charlotte Wilder writes, this kind of on-field proposal is allowed even if you’re never supposed to propose on a Jumbotron.
- Here’s Crawfish Boxes recap of the Astros’ first-ever championship win.
- After 33 combined seasons, Justin Verlander and Carlos Beltran are finally World Series champs.
- MLB’s commissioner and the baseball gods might have forgotten about what Yuli Gurriel did to Yu Darvish, but the fans at Dodger Stadium did not ...
- ... not even with Gurriel’s helmet doff to Darvish the first time he faced him since his racist gesture.
- World Series Game 7 was in some ways the most boring of this Fall Classic, but at the same time, it was also stressful as hell because of the six games that preceded it.
- Houston’s rappers were just as hyped as everyone else when the Astros won the World Series.
- Here’s what we know so far about the Astros’ champioship celebration.
- Let’s rewind a bit to Grant Brisbee’s early postseason feature on how the Astros are a perfect fit for the city of Houston.
- Here’s the reaction from inside Minute Maid Park from the moment the Astros won the World Series.
George Springer is World Series MVP and hero to kids who stutter
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