World Series 2024: For the Dodgers, the scale and scope of the championship cannot be overstated

NEW YORK – Never has a World Series been important to so many people.

As the gold ribbons shone down on the champion Los Angeles Dodgers, the joy of it reverberated far, far beyond the makeshift stage hastily erected in the Yankee Stadium outfield.

In the audience below the ceremonial platform, tears flowed freely down the proud faces of loved ones dressed in blue. In the stands behind the visitors' bench, numerous traveling fans, like those who have accompanied this team away all season, serenaded the strangers they didn't know but whom they cared so deeply about.

Back in Los Angeles: Fireworks in the streets, an illuminated blue D in the Hollywood sign, a symphony of car horns and more flowers laid in front of Chavez Canyon in honor of Fernando Valenzuela. On Friday, Valenzuela's 64th birthday, the long-dreamed-of parade will take place. And across the Pacific, students stood at a midday vigil party at Shohei Ohtani High School, cheering and banging thundersticks together in honor of their most famous graduates.

The magnitude and scope of this title, which the Dodgers secured with an absurd 7-6 comeback win in Game 5 on Wednesday, cannot be overstated. This organization is a behemoth, a monstrosity, impressive in both its size and its strength. The Dodgers have resources that few other teams can match, as evidenced by their prodigious spending spree last winter, when they committed more than $1.15 billion for Ohtani as well as two right-handed hurlers, Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Tyler Glasnow .

But for most of the last decade, the Dodgers dominated in the summer and disappointed in the fall. It wasn't until 2020, during the bizarre COVID-shortened season, that this organization finished the year with a trophy. Despite that title, their financial strength, their development spirit, their endless talent horizons and their twelve straight playoff appearances, the Dodgers still felt like a club operating under their cover. Always temptingly close, always a victim of October roulette.

That's why this title meant so much to a team that spent so much, worked so much, planned so much, and dreamed so much about this very moment.

“We understand this is really difficult,” pitcher Evan Phillips told Yahoo Sports. “I think that's why we really appreciate the moment tonight and see how profound the celebration can be – because we know how special it is.

“And there’s so much behind it. There are people here tonight that I’ve never met before.”

Phillips, a key member of the Dodgers' bullpen for the past three seasons, did not pitch in this Fall Classic. An arm injury suffered during the NLCS forced him into the position of a well-informed fan, living vicariously through the men he spent the last eight months with. But the fact that you were there as a spectator didn't detract from the experience; Phillips' journey from two-time shutout, who also didn't play, to shutdown reliever is a perfect encapsulation of how the Dodgers identify, develop and empower players to be their best selves. Phillips couldn't even list everyone within the organization he wanted to thank.

One of the people he remembered, Walker Buehler, soon left the clubhouse shirtless and shoesless, his pants soaked with champagne. The World Series hero shivered in the evening air as his wife, McKenzie, protected him beneath her leather jacket. In his God-touched right hand he held three Gatorade cups of beer stacked on top of each other. Another unopened can of soapy water stuck out of his right back pocket. Buehler, the starting pitcher of Game 3 who recorded the finale of Game 5 in a surprise appearance for the ages, enjoyed the good times to the fullest. Understandable, considering the arduous journey he has traveled to reach this point.

Elsewhere on the field, Shohei Ohtani, the most talented baseball player the world has ever known, prevailed. A guard followed in perfect unison on either side of his comically broad frame. Behind Ohtani followed his ever-present shadow, an army of cameras and flashbulbs documenting his every move in front of millions of adoring fans across the United States and across the Pacific. Japan's Taylor Swift soared above it all, past throngs of onlookers, before ducking into the clubhouse to hoist the golden trophy aloft for the first time.

As the Dodgers' leading man disappeared from sight, the most overlooked player on the active roster strolled the scene alone, searching the crowd for his wheelchair-bound father. Brent Honeywell Jr., whose once-promising pitching career was derailed by an avalanche of arm injuries, joined the Dodgers as a reliever on a plane in July. He brought with him a crackpot, enough shit to fill Yankee Stadium, and the experiences of a man who had seen the bottom and crawled out.

His role in these playoffs was ugly, although undeniably important: He threw garbage innings so the high-leverage relievers didn't have to. That meant that in Game 4, the only game of that fall classic that the Dodgers lost, Honeywell set a record for the most pitches ever thrown in a single postseason inning (50) when the Yankees threw him for five runs knocked down.

But none of that failure, recent or historic, loomed over the permed pitcher as he looked at his father. There, on the Yankee Stadium field, Brent Sr., a former minor league pitcher himself, stood tall – supported on one side by his wife and on the other by his best friend – and gave the two Honeywells the opportunity for a long hug. The two men cried in each other's arms while the wheelchair was temporarily free, both fully understanding the pain and patience that lay behind this beautiful moment of complete satisfaction.

It was a moment that belonged to every Dodger in the building, from those whose contributions were obvious like World Series MVP Freddie Freeman and now three-time champion Mookie Betts; to the unsung heroes like Honeywell; to those who weren't allowed to play at all, like Phillips; to those who made it big when it counted, like Buehler; to those who helped build the behemoth of these Dodgers, like veteran starter Clayton Kershaw, manager Dave Roberts and president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman.

At one point in the postgame madness, outfielder Teoscar Hernández, whose game-winning two-strike double in the fifth, navigated the crowd with his 2-year-old son in his arms. The wide-eyed boy, only partially comprehending the moment, looked up at his father and asked a very simple question.

“No more baseball?”

For this year, yes, no more baseball. But for the first time, for Hernández, Honeywell, Phillips, Ohtani and a host of other Dodgers, the sobering reality of a season's end is a good and glorious thing.

It's a thing they'll celebrate forever, with the hundreds and thousands and millions of Dodgers around the world.