Why do sports fascinate so many of us? One major reason is that, like looking into a kaleidoscope, we see an ever-changing combination of familiar elements appearing in new combinations.
On the one hand, we have the continuity of the basic components of a sport (in baseball, that would be the classic dual of pitcher versus batter, baserunning, and fielding, three outs per inning, etc.), while at the same time, we are treated to unpredictable, surprising, thrilling performances that are unprecedented and unique.
A fan never knows when he/she goes to the ballpark if something will happen that has never happened before. The kaleidoscope is continually being refreshed, and fans keep coming back for more.
We saw this dualism of constancy and change in the just-completed 2024 World Series of baseball. The matchup between two venerable and storied franchises—the New York Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers—was tailor-made for high TV ratings.
Not only do these two teams have rich histories full of legendary performers and performances, they each featured the best player in their respective leagues—the Yankees’ Aaron Judge from the American League and the Dodgers’ Shohei Ohtani from the National. The setup was ideal.
So, what actually happened?
Neither superstar shone in this five-game series in which the Yankees won only one game (a Game Four blowout) while the Dodgers won four close games, two of them (the first and the last) being the kind of thrilling come-from-behind victories that their fans will savor for a long time. Ohtani, who partially dislocated his left shoulder while sliding into second base early in the series, batted only .105.
Judge struggled even more. Although he ended up batting .222 for the Series due to a strong performance in Game Five, he looked out of sorts at the plate during the first four games. He struck out frequently and the way he waved his bat futilely at balls that dipped or curved out of the strike zone was cringeworthy.
As we have seen repeatedly in 2024, in team sports, a superstar often is not enough to emerge victorious. That was certainly the case in this World Series. Relatively unknown players, like Tommy Edman of the Dodgers and Anthony Volpe of the Yankees played key roles in the games that their teams won.
After playing in the shadow of Ohtani (who became the first player ever to enter the “50/50 Club” by hitting 54 home runs and stealing 59 bases during the regular season) another likely future Hall of Famer – Freddie Freeman – led the Dodgers to the championship with a historic World Series performance.
Freeman became the first baseball player to ever hit a home run in each of the first four games of a World Series. His dramatic tenth-inning walk-off grand slam in Game One set the tone for the Dodgers to win this Series. Freeman also tied the all-time World Series record by amassing 12 RBIs in the five games.
Just as nobody could have predicted Freeman’s unprecedented accomplishment, so nobody could have foreseen the kaleidoscope turn to such a gut-wrenching collapse as the Yankees experienced in Game Five.
Sitting on a comfortable 5-0 lead in the fifth inning (no team in World Series history had ever come back from five runs down in an elimination game), the Yankees fell apart defensively. Judge, who had played errorless ball in the outfield all season and who had made a spectacular catch against the outfield wall earlier in the game, inexplicably dropped an easy line drive.
Gold Glove shortstop Anthony Volpe, the batting hero of Game Four, committed an error with a bad throw to third base. Then, in a mental lapse, starting pitcher Gerrit Cole failed to cover first base on a ground ball to first baseman Anthony Rizzo. I found it excruciating to watch, and I’m not even a Yankees fan. For the millions of Yankees fans in the stadium and watching on television, it must have been sickening. The kaleidoscope was exceedingly cruel to them last night.
Congratulations, though, to the Los Angeles Dodgers. They were the better team in this year’s World Series. Now baseball fans can start speculating on which teams are going to shine in the baseball kaleidoscope in 2025.
