LOS ANGELES (CNS) – A victory parade celebrating the Dodgers’ World Series title will be held Friday morning in downtown Los Angeles, along with a “special ticketed celebration” at Dodger Stadium.
The parade, featuring team members riding atop double-decker buses, will begin at 11 a.m. at Gloria Molina Grand Park across from City Hall. Mayor Karen Bass will speak to officially begin the 45-minute procession, which will move south on Spring Street, then west on First Street, south on Grand Avenue and west on Fifth Street, ending in the area of Fifth and Flower streets.
Fans planning to attend the parade were being “emphatically encouraged” to take public transportation, due to “significant streets closures and limited public parking.”
Following the parade, the team will travel to Dodger Stadium, where the ticketed event will begin at 12:15 p.m.
According to the team, parking gates at the stadium will open at 8:30 a.m., and the stadium entry gates will open at 9 a.m. Food and merchandise will be available for purchase. In-stadium entertainment will be offered prior to the team’s arrival, including coverage of the parade on DodgerVision scoreboards.
“All Dodger Stadium guidelines and rules will apply to this event, including the reminder not to bring in signs, bags or any other items that aren’t permitted under our policies,” according to a statement from the team.
The Dodgers noted that “due to logistics, traffic and timing, fans will not be able to attend both events (the parade and the stadium celebration).”
Dodger officials said a portion of the proceeds from the stadium event will be donated to the Los Angeles Dodgers Foundation, “which is tackling the most pressing problems facing Los Angeles with a mission to improve education, health care, homelessness and social justice for all Angelenos.”
Both the parade and the stadium event will be televised live in their entirety on Spectrum SportsNet LA, and on local TV stations. Television coverage is expected to begin at 9:30 a.m.
An announcement about the process for obtaining tickets to the stadium event will be made Thursday morning, a Dodger spokesman told City News Service.
The Dodgers won their second World Series championship in five years Wednesday night, overcoming a five-run deficit to defeat the New York Yankees, 7-6, at Yankee Stadium and win the best-of-seven series four games to one.
Freddie Freeman was unanimously selected as the Series’ MVP for driving in 12 runs, tying the record set by Bobby Richardson in the Yankees’ seven-game loss to the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1960, and becoming the first player to hit home runs in each of the first four games of a Series.
The five-run deficit the Dodgers overcame was the largest in a World Series-clinching victory, breaking the previous record of four by the Pirates in their 9-7 victory over the Washington Senators in Game 7 of the Series in 1925, according to the Elias Sports Bureau, Major League Baseball’s official statistician.
Trailing 5-0 in the fifth inning, the Dodgers combined a leadoff single by Kiké Hernandez with errors by Aaron Judge, New York’s center fielder, and Anthony Volpe, the Yankee shortstop, on balls hit by Tommy Edman and Will Smith to load the bases.
Gerrit Cole struck out Gavin Lux and Shohei Ohtani but the Dodgers kept the inning going when Cole failed to cover first base on a ground ball hit by Mookie Betts, who was credited with a single, as Kiké Hernandez scored.
Freeman followed with a single, driving in Edman and Smith. The Dodgers tied the score 5-5 when Teoscar Hernandez doubled in Betts and Freeman.
All five runs were unearned.
The Yankees regained the lead in the sixth when Giancarlo Stanton’s sacrifice fly drove in Juan Soto, who led off with a walk, moved to second on a walk to Judge and went to third when Jazz Chisholm Jr. grounded into a force out.
Tommy Kahnle took the mound for New York in the eighth and allowed each of the three batters he faced to reach base.
Kiké Hernandez led off with a single, Edman followed with an infield single and Smith walked on four pitches to load the bases.
Luke Weaver relieved Kahnle. Lux hit a sacrifice fly that drove in Kiké Hernandez, tying the score, 6-6, with Edman moving to third. Austin Wells, the Yankee catcher, was called for catcher’s interference when Ohtani was at bat, loading the bases.
Betts’ sacrifice fly drove in Edman with what proved to be the winning run before a crowd announced at 49,263.
New York put runners on first and second with one out in its half of the eighth on a double by Judge and a walk to Chisholm. However, Blake Treinen got Stanton to fly out and struck out Anthony Rizzo to end the inning.
Walker Buehler entered the game in the ninth, two days after pitching five shutout innings in the Dodgers’ 4-2 Game 3 victory, for his first relief appearance since June 28, 2018, when he was a rookie. After getting Volpe to ground out, he struck out Austin Wells and Alex Verdugo to end the game, giving the Dodgers their eighth World Series championship and first since 2020.
“I definitely didn’t plan it out this way,” Dodger manager Dave Roberts said. “Certainly a lot of emotions from the way it started to certainly the way it finished. I’m just so grateful to be in this chair, and what our guys did, the resilience, the fight that they had.
“Certainly all the momentum was on the side of the Yankees, and Gerrit was throwing the heck out of the baseball. For us to keep scratching and clawing, we were just kind of to the last guy available. To see what Walker did, what Blake did, all those guys, and the big at-bats to get us back in the game was huge.”
Treinen (2-0), the seventh of eight Dodger pitchers, was credited with the victory, pitching 2 1/3 scoreless innings, allowing one hit, striking out three.
Buehler was credited with his first save in his 10 relief appearances, nine as a rookie in regular-season play.
The eight pitchers the Dodgers used Wednesday tied the record for the most in a potential World Series-clinching game with the 1967 St. Louis Cardinals, the 1975 Cincinnati Reds and 2011 Texas Rangers.
The Dodgers are the first team to use eight pitchers in a potential clinching game and win.
Kahnle (1-1), the third of five New York pitchers, was charged with the loss, allowing two runs on two hits and a walk and failing to retire a batter.
The Yankees took a 3-0 lead in the first inning on back-to-back home runs by Judge and Chisholm. They added a run in the second when Volpe led off with a double, moved to third on Wells’ ground out and scored on Verdugo’s single.
Verdugo’s single prompted Roberts to replace starter Jack Flaherty with Anthony Banda, who struck out Gleyber Torres for the second out, then issued back-to-back walks to Soto and Judge to load the bases.
Banda induced Chisholm to ground out to end the inning.
Ryan Brasier entered the game to start the bottom of the third and allowed a home run to Stanton on the first pitch he threw, increasing the New York’s lead to 5-0 and chances of winning to 93.9%, according to MLB.com.
The championship came in a season when the Dodgers used 60 players, including 38 pitchers, and had 28 players on the injured, paternity, bereavement or family leave lists, according to the website True Blue LA.
“We did go through a lot, but I’ll say we still had the best record in all of baseball this year,” Roberts said. “It wasn’t easy, but our guys fought and played every day the right way, played to win.
“There was a lot of back filling on talent because of injury, a lot of young players cut their teeth, which is good. But one thing is that we just kept going. Even in the postseason, I don’t think anyone had us picked. I don’t think they had us picked to get out of the first series.
“For us to go out there and fight and scratch and claw and win 11 games in October, that’s a credit to our guys.”
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