How the Dodgers persisted to a World Series parade: 'No asterisk on this one'
NEW YORK — The Los Angeles Dodgers had heard the minimizing and belittling of their short-season championship in the hours and days and months and years since they dogpiled between the mound and home plate at Globe Life Field four seasons ago. They believed what they did in 2020 amid adverse circumstances and a Texas bubble might have been harder and required even more than the typical season. Every other team, after all, had the same chance they did.
And yet …
"You want the full season one, just to get that whole narrative out of the window," Gavin Lux said. "I think it kind of bugs everybody a little bit that you don't get the recognition that you deserve."
For the past four years, it served as fuel, a little extra motivation to acquire the franchise's first full-season World Series championship since 1988. The Dodgers had gone to the postseason 11 straight years before this one, with only one pandemic-shortened title to show for it. Many of the same characters from 2020 remained, craving a championship no one could question and a celebration that evaded them the last time they won in the middle of a pandemic.
Thanks to seven relievers and the first five-run comeback in a World Series clincher Wednesday night in the Bronx, that parade they missed in 2020 will take place Friday in Los Angeles — on what would have been Fernando Valenzuela's 64th birthday.
"I'm going to enjoy the heck out of this one," manager Dave Roberts said. "I'm sure there's no asterisk on this one."
In a season defined by persistence, the Dodgers outlasted the Yankees in Game 5 of the World Series, battling back from an early five-run hole, falling behind again, then coming through with the go-ahead runs in the eighth inning of a 7-6 win that