In a confusing, changing world, there is still the Dodgers vs the Yankees

Yankees-Dodgers, 1941-1963

From 1947 to 1964, the Yankee Dynasty made it into the World Series 15 times in 18 years. The Dodgers opposed them in seven of those Fall Classics. The first six of those were called “subway series,” because the Dodgers were still in Brooklyn, and the Big Apple was the capital of baseball. The Yankees won five of the seven in the Dynasty era, and has won one earlier meeting in 1941, making it six for eight, including the first five.

Only one of the two Dodger victories could be claimed by Brooklyn. That was the “wait until next year” era, although the Dodgers fielded some of the greatest teams in National League history. Five of the 1953 Dodgers are in the Hall of Fame: Reese, Campanella, Snider, Hodges and Robinson. Excluding pitching, they may have fielded the greatest line-up in baseball history. Six men on that 1953 team scored 100 runs or more, and a seventh won the batting championship. Third baseman Billy Cox was the eighth man, a defensive wizard, but even he batted .291. The team won 105 games in a 154-game season, then batted .300 as a team in the World Series.

And still the Yankees beat them.

Oops. Maybe the Brooklyn Dodgers should have spent some effort on pitching.

Pitching certainly seemed to help the Los Angeles version in 1963 when Koufax and Drysdale led the Dodgers to a 4-0 sweep, despite a Dodger line-up that had scored only 640 runs all year – sixth in the league. (That great 1953 line-up had scored 955!) The 1963 Dodgers continued their ineffectual hitting with a World Series batting line of .214/.279/.350 – even worse than their regular season numbers – but they defeated Mantle and company without breaking a sweat! The moral: you don’t need much offense to win the World Series when your pitching staff has a 1.00 ERA.

Yankees-Dodgers, 1977-1981

The Yankee Dynasty collapsed in 1965, but the Bronx Bombers sailed out of a decade-long period in the doldrums to make the series four times in the six years from 1976-81. The Dodgers were their opponents in three of those autumns. Once again the Yankees came out on top. They took two of the three match-ups.

Given that the Yankees dominated both eras, it’s unusual that each of those periods ended with four consecutive games won by the Dodgers. (The 1963 Dodgers swept, and the 1981 Dodgers came back from a 2-0 deficit to win four in a row.)

A Yankees-Dodgers World Series was a special chunk of Americana for forty years. The teams met 11 times, with the Yankees winning eight of them. They have not met, however, in the past 43 seasons. Both teams have had good years and have consistently been in the post-season, but the multiple layers of playoffs make it unlikely that any two pre-specified AL and NL teams will meet.

That makes this one special.