After 162 regular-season games, wildcard games and two playoff series, MLB has finally reached the World Series and this year it will be the Los Angeles Dodgers versus the Houston Astros.
Prior to 2013, such a matchup would have been impossible, as for the first 51 seasons of their existence, the Houston Astros were a National League team.
Regardless of which league, American or National, with which they are/were affiliated, it is just the second time they have made it to the World Series. They won the National League pennant in 2005, where they lost to the Chicago White Sox.
The Los Angeles Dodgers on the other hand, have multiple World Championships to their credits. Six of them, to be precise, in 1955 and 59, 1963 and 65 and 1981 and 88.
Other than a bit of a slide near the end of the regular season, when they had such a commanding lead in the National League West Division that they could not be caught under any circumstances, they were far and above the best team in U.S. professional baseball at the top level.
They have been sitting idle for the better part of the week, having disposed of the Chicago Cubs, the World Series winners from last year, 4 games to 1 in the best-of-seven National League Championship series.
The American League Championship Series between the New York Yankees and the Astros went the distance, but the deciding game never seemed in any doubt and the final score of 4 – 0 provided nothing to make anyone think otherwise.
A Yankees – Dodgers World Series would have offered some appeal to baseball traditionalists, as up until the beginning of the 1957 season, the now Los Angeles Dodgers were based in New York and known as the Brooklyn Dodgers, which was considered far more of a seismic shift than was the 2013 move by the Astros from the National to the American League.
