Yankees-Dodgers

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I was an obnoxious Yankees fan at an early age.

(Hard to believe).

My Dad was the reason why I was so passionate about it - and we were happy that the Yankees made it to the World Series in 1976, but they got run over by the Big Red Machine.

They signed Reggie that winter and waiting for the season to start in 1977 was an eternal wait.

The ‘77 Yankees were good, and we watched a lot of games. The 1977 season was great and the World Series matchup between the Yankees and Dodgers promised to be epic.

By then, my friends were sick of me and they all - to a man - were rooting for the Dodgers.

I can name the batting order for the Yankees as well as the Dodgers - there were some really great players:

Think Reggie and Munson and Randolph and Catfish on the Yankees.

Garvey, Cey, Davey Lopes and Don Sutton on the Dodgers.

Billy Martin and Tommy Laaorda were the colorful managers.

The Yankees won 4 games to 2 and Reggie hit 5 bombs, including 3 in the last game.

I happily accepted the $3.00 I received from my buddy Al.

I also talked non-stop about the greatest franchise in the history of American sports and laughed at the Dodgers fans.

Both teams were back in the series in ‘78 and my main memory from that series was Nettles was a magician at 3rd, Guidry was masterful and while the Yankees lost the first two games - they won the last four.

Back-to-back.

They played again in the series in 1981 and the Dodgers won it, but that was a strike season and kinda’ doesn’t count (Dodgers also won it in the Covid year - so they seem to only win it all in weird years).

To be fair they also won in ‘88 but I was rooting for them then - I never liked the Bash Brothers or Dennis Eckersley.

Anywhoha…

…this will be an epic series.

Judge, Stanton, Soto against Ohtani, Betts and Freddy.

Giants of the game!

Feels like 1977 again…

…wondering if Al wants to put up $3 again.

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