Welcome to the instant nostalgia World Series, a trip back in baseball time
The urgent longing for baseball to be what it once was can be detected in the relief found from a World Series between “icons” of the game, as if the Yankees and Dodgers have not been holding up their end until now.
Too much Texas in October muddies the mind, and Arizona is springtime, not autumn. Who knows not where Oakland is but why?
Oh, Atlanta can stick its nose in and even Chicago can drop by, but this is how it is supposed to be, how it used to be, how it was when everyone cared and Willie, Mickey and the Duke didn’t need last names.
This is instant nostalgia, if such a thing is possible, inspiring the retelling of shared times when Reggie hit three in a row and Larsen was perfect and Jackie was stealing home.
It seems that all the best baseball lore came from the Yankees and the Dodgers, even after they became separated by an entire nation. Geography cannot erase essentials.
They could go their separate ways and do their separate things, have their separate glories and have their separate pains, but only Yankees and Dodgers together can bring sighs from the old and questions from the young.
Tell me, Pops, was Sandy Koufax the best pitcher ever? Why, yes, he was for a time. Maybe for all time. And who was this George Steinbrenner, anyhow? Watch “Seinfeld” reruns, sonny, and try not to laugh.
The world will not let this be just another World Series. History has its obligations. This is, to raise a popular comparison, the Lakers and the Celtics, and to understand how far baseball has fallen in the popular panorama of sports, basketball is now the standard of evaluation.
This has to do with the two principal figures involved, the Dodgers’ Shohei Ohtani and the Yankees’ Aaron Judge. They are Larry Bird and Magic Johnson, no hint on which is which. They are, even without the Series, even without the history of the two teams, the outstanding players in their sport, each one surely the MVP of his league.
Ohtani needs the Series to validate his uniqueness, the Babe Ruth of our time, although Ohtani will not pitch. Seems a little selfish. Just one inning on the national stage, to verify the rumors? He toiled too long in the suburbs to impress an urban audience.
Judge needs the Series to support his place as the most significant Yankee since Derek Jeter, although Judge would still be four titles behind.
The chance of them meeting on the biggest stage at the peak of their careers is a special thing, a real gem, like finding the pearl in the oyster or a smiling clerk at the DMV.
This is the real thing, no need to imagine the impossible, like LeBron James playing against Michael Jordan. Again, basketball. Hmmm.
Magic Johnson did play against Larry Bird, resurrecting the NBA Finals from delayed telecasts to a prime time appointment and, in fact, Jordan did play against both of them, if only Johnson in a Finals.
Is this Series going to restore what has become a local sport to a national pastime?
Is this going to be like Tiger Woods restoring golf to the days of Nicklaus and Palmer, Woods never having to play either of them when it mattered?
In short, this is big, bigger than usual, big enough to search for metaphors, big enough to carry a dwindling game back to the national obsession it once was. Don’t forget, Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire gave baseball a shot in the arm, no pun intended.
All of this adds an obligation none of these Yankees or Dodgers agreed to but of which they must be aware. This cannot be just the usual tidying up of a season where one team gets a parade and the other gets used towels.
This has to be, and already is touted to be, one for the ages, not declaring which age, old, middle or stone. Nothing else will do.
If the 50-homer pair does not hit at least five each, baseball loses. If every game is not tied going into the ninth, baseball loses. If this one does not have its own literature, or at least its own documentary when it is over, baseball loses.
Otherwise, Yankees and Dodgers, not a big deal.