While we await the start of the 2024 World Series Friday between the Dodgers and the Yankees over at 1000 Vin Scully Avenue, we wanted to take a look back at the most frequent World Series matchup, albeit one that has not happened in 43 years.
The Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Yankees played each other in the World Series eight times between 1941 and 1956, with the Yankees winning seven of those. The Dodgers lone Brooklyn win was in 1955. And if you want to know more about them, you can go to most libraries and go to the baseball history section and grab a title off the shelf and you probably have a 1 in 3 chance of finding a book that touches on the topic. Baseball book publishing is a little bit New York-centric.
Since the Dodgers moved to Los Angeles in 1958, the Dodgers and Yankees have met each other four times, with each team winning twice. Let’s take a quick look back at those series.
1963: After the Dodgers lost the NL pennant to the Giants in horrifying fashion in a 1962 tiebreaker game, the team was able to regroup and win the National League again. The Yankees were favored in the series but ran into a dominating Dodger pitching performance. Using just four pitchers (the Dodgers used 13 pitchers in this year's NLCS against the Mets), Sandy Koufax, Don Drysdale, Johnny Podres, and Ron Perranoski, the Dodgers swept the Yankees in four games. The Yankees scored just four runs in the entire series. This is the only World Series that the Dodgers have won that concluded in Los Angeles.
1977: After some down years for both franchises, both teams made it to the World Series under the leadership of flamboyant managers Tommy Lasorda and Billy Martin. After splitting the first two games in New York, the Dodgers frittered away the advantage by dropping Games 3 and 4 and falling behind 3-1. The Dodger bats came alive for a Game 5 rout, but on the return to the Bronx, Reggie Jackson had a legendary performance, hitting three home runs on his only three swings of the bat in the game. The Yankees won 8-4 for their first World Series win since 1962.
1978: For the first time since 1958, the same two teams faced each other in the World Series. The big difference was that the Yankees had fired Billy Martin as manager and replaced him with the much quieter Long Beach native, Bob Lemon. The Dodgers opened the series at home with a pair of victories and headed to New York full of confidence. That turned out to be misplaced as the Yankees won all three games in the Bronx. When the series returned to Los Angeles for Game 6, the Dodgers were spent and lost 7-2.
1981: A midseason players’ strike necessitated a weird playoff structure. The season was split in half, and teams leading at the strike were guaranteed a playoff spot. The Dodgers and Yankees benefited from knowing that they were already in the playoffs and rested up. The Dodgers were led by rookie pitching sensation Fernando Valenzuela. The Dodgers and Yankees still had many familiar faces from 1977-78. The Yankees won the first two games in New York, but this time, like in 1978, the Dodgers came back from down 0-2 in the series to reel off four straight wins. Valenzuela won his only start in Game 3, and the Dodgers won a close high-scoring Game 4, a close low-scoring Game 5, and then blew out the Yankees 9-2 upon returning to New York.
