Classic series highlighted best of baseball

By David Mullen

While summer officially ended in late September, the end of summer for baseball fans came late in the evening of November 1, when Toronto Blue Jays catcher Alejandro Kirk hit a broken bat two-hopper to Los Angeles Dodgers shortstop Mookie Betts for a World Series ending double play.

Baseball is summer’s game. The spirit of summer represents a connection to the outdoors and a celebration of light, joy and renewal. Those traits are also found in baseball. 

While the World Series embraces the moniker “Fall Classic,” the end of the baseball season is an ode to the summer spirit. Great baseball weather is a celebration of the outdoors and light. A game with a relaxing pace, which can ramp up at any time into a tense, edge-of-your seat game played by exceptional players, brings joy. And the fact that the game is as good as it’s ever been, stoked by a plethora of young talent, is renewal. The 2025 World Series encapsulated the summer spirit.

In 1972, Albert Hammond released the pop song turned anthem, “It Never Rains in Southern California.” Dodgers Stadium is only a beach view away from epitomizing everything notable about sunny Southern California. Opened in 1989 as a state-of-the-art retractable roof stadium, the Blue Jays’ Rogers Centre home still shines 36 years later. 

Playing in LA and in a downtown Toronto domed stadium assured fans that weather would not be impacting the seven-game baseball championship. No one wants a repeat of Game 4 in the 1997 World Series, when the wind chill at Cleveland’s Progressive Field dropped to 18 degrees.    

The 121st World Series was one for the ages. The Los Angeles Dodgers defeated the Toronto Blue Jays, 4 games to 3, in the first international World Series in 32 years. The U.S. versus Canada. Nine countries were represented by players native to the host countries and Puerto Rico, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Japan, Mexico, South Korea and Venezuela.  

Two players born in Japan had the largest impact on Los Angeles becoming the eighth franchise in MLB history to win back-to-back titles. Shohei Ohtani proved he is the modern-day Babe Ruth. His Game 4 NLDS performance versus Milwaukee, in which he pitched six scoreless innings, struck out 10 and hit three home runs, was Ruthian.

Dodgers pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto revealed pitches never seen in baseball and stamina that allowed him to start Game 6, with the Dodgers down 3 games to 2 in Toronto, and pitch in relief the next day in Game 7. Yamamoto won both games and was named World Series MVP.  

The beauty of baseball is that in any given game, fans may witness something that has never been seen before. Twenty-five-year-old Blue Jays outfielder Addison Barger has 102 RBI in his career. He got four RBI with one swing in Game 1 when he hit the first pinch-hit grand slam in World Series history. 

In Game 3, Dodgers 1B Freddie Freeman became the first player to hit a walk-off home run in consecutive World Series. In Game 7, 41-year-old Max Scherzer of Toronto took the mound as the oldest pitcher ever to start Game 7 in the World Series. In five years as a utility player for three teams, Toronto’s 3B Ernie Clement has amassed 342 hits. In 18 playoff games, he set a record for the most hits in a single postseason with 30.

My father took me to my first baseball game in 1965 at Candlestick Park for a Dodgers game versus the San Francisco Giants. The day was brilliant, the grass was a flawless green and two of the best teams with players like Sandy Koufax, Don Drysdale, Willie Mays, Willie McCovey and Juan Marichal faced each other. I was hooked for life. Sixty years later, after a riveting World Series against the two best teams in baseball, I have never been a bigger fan than I am today.  

MLB is not without issues. There is a disparity of team payrolls, a grueling regular season, a convoluted television dilemma affecting local and national viewers and the rising cost for families to attend a game. Baseball is still a premier spectator sport, but the game on the field always wins out. 

When Kirk hit a Yamamoto “Bugs Bunny pitch” to converted SS Betts, who has played nearly 1,000 more big league games in the outfield than the infield, the 2025 baseball season came to a sudden end. The series left fans wanting more baseball. But as summer turns to fall and winter, baseball takes a much-needed respite. Sports fans can watch slam dunks, slap shots and safety blitzes until pitchers and catchers report to MLB Spring Training around Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2026.

After Game 7, Los Angeles Dodgers President of Baseball Operations Andrew Friedman said, “Our overarching goal is for this to be the golden era of Dodger baseball.” One can’t blame Friedman for his team-first attitude, but the 2025 World Series was much more than one team winning, The Series was a microcosm of the golden era of all of baseball. It was as golden as the warm, summer sun.

The final score in Game 7 was Los Angeles 5, Toronto 4 in 11 innings. The 2025 World Series featured heroic hitting, jaw-dropping defensive plays and superb pitching.  The sun has set for another baseball season, but the summer spirit that defines baseball lives on.