The Los Angeles Dodgers are the 2024 Major League Baseball champions after defeating the New York Yankees 7-6 in Game 5 on Wednesday night. The Dodgers won the best of seven game series 4-1.
The Dodgers overcame a 5-0 deficit to win their eighth title in franchise history. The Dodgers set a record for being the first team to use eight pitchers in a game to clinch the World Series, ESPN reported.
The franchise’s last championship came during the COVID-19-shortened season of 2020. Before that year, the franchise had not won a World Series since 1988, despite a long run of regular season success over the last two decades.
“We’re obviously resilient, but there’s so much love in the clubhouse that won this game today,” Dodgers star player Mookie Betts said during an interview on ESPN. “That’s what it was. It was love, it was grit. I mean, it was just a beautiful thing. I’m just proud of us, and I’m happy for us.”
Betts was embroiled in some controversy in Game 4 when he was trying to field a foul ball that made its way to the stands before a New York Yankees fan grabbed his arm and ripped the ball out of his glove.
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The championship also marks the first for MLB megastar Shohei Ohtani, who signed with the team as a free agent in the offseason. Ohtani’s deal was a 10-year contract worth $700 million.
Dodgers first baseman Freddie Freeman was named Most Valuable Player after a massive World Series in which he hit a home run in four out of the series’s five games, including a grand slam in extra innings in Game 1 that won the game for the Dodgers.