Ding-dong, the Dodgers are dead. And what does that say about us?

 

A-way back in 1998, when people interested in winning World Series still ran your New York Yankees, Peter O'Malley, inheritor of the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Hal Steinbrenner of his day, announced that it was no longer possible for a single family's fortune to run a baseball team. (Something that must have come as news to almost all of his fellow owners.)

A few romantic souls suggested that, if O'Malley fils wanted to sell the Dodgers, why not bring them back to Brooklyn? Surely, an ownership group could be put together within about five minutes or so for such a venture, and if assorted Steinbrenners and Wilpons objected, well, what's a guillotine for?

Pete quickly put the kibosh on such notions, though, scornfully insisting that "commitment to the community, to Los Angeles and to Southern California is the number one priority."

O'Malley then sold the team to that longtime pillar of the community, Rupert Murdoch, for $325 million.

I am merely ecstatic that the Los Angeles Dodgers are out. They should not win another game, never mind another World Series—they or the Giants, both. Both teams left New York City out of greed and racism, and they should only die.

That said...I have to admit that if the Yankees were run like the Flock (as they were called in NYC newspapers until their move), I would be running through the proverbial field of nipples that our Peerless Leader so brilliantly evokes. 

The Bums (also a popular nickname in Brooklyn) spend money to make money. They go all out to win, and found a way around baseball's spending restrictions to go sign even more stars.  

They are what capitalism is SUPPOSED to be all about, and too rarely is:  building sustained excellence to make money. 

This is what the New York Yankees used to be all about. 

So, for the record, the Dodgers failed to become the first National League team ever to win three consecutive World Series. Only four NL teams have won two in a row:

1907-08:  Chicago Cubs*

1921-22:  New York Giants

1975-76:  Cincinnati Reds

2024-25:  Los Angeles Dodgers

From the American League, the following teams have won two or more consecutive World Series:

1910-11:  Philadelphia Athletics

1915-16:  Boston Red Sox**

1927-28:  New York Yankees

1929-30:  Philadelphia Athletics

1936-39:  New York Yankees***

1949-53:  New York Yankees****

1961-62:  New York Yankees

1972-74:  Oakland Athletics*****

1977-78:  New York Yankees

1992-93:  Toronto Blue Jays

1998-00:  New York Yankees******

*Cubs record should not stand due to awful Fred Merkle call, which led to Chicago's 108-year "Curse of Fred Merkle."

**Boo.

***Four consecutive World Series titles. 

****Five consecutive World Series titles. Still the record.

*****Three consecutive World Series titles.

******Three consecutive World Series titles.