AILSA CHANG, HOST:
New York versus Los Angeles, Yankees versus Dodgers, Aaron Judge versus Shohei Ohtani. The World Series begins tonight, and it is the most hyped World Series in a generation. And here to hype me is NPR's sports correspondent Becky Sullivan. Hey, Becky.
BECKY SULLIVAN, BYLINE: Ailsa.
CHANG: OK, this is not going to be impartial journalism right now because of course I am going to be rooting for the LA Dodgers, my home team. LA is going nuts this week. Help us understand...
SULLIVAN: Yes.
CHANG: ...Becky...
SULLIVAN: Yeah, I mean this is...
CHANG: ...Why this World Series is such a big deal.
SULLIVAN: Totally. And it is. It's a juggernaut of a matchup. This is like a Goliath versus Goliath situation. It's actually been sort of rare in baseball to have the two best teams face-off in the World Series lately. But we're undeniably getting that this year no matter what way you look at it. So these two teams had the best records in their respective leagues. They had the two best players - the likely MVPs - in Judge and Ohtani, as you mentioned, and certainly just two of baseball's, you know, like, just most storied franchises, a rivalry that dates back, like, a hundred years.
CHANG: Yeah, when the Dodgers were still in New York, right?
SULLIVAN: Yeah.
CHANG: The Brooklyn Dodgers.
SULLIVAN: Exactly. Yeah. So this was like a cross-town rivalry. You had players like Joe DiMaggio, Jackie Robinson, Sandy Koufax, Mickey Mantle. I mean, like...
CHANG: Wow.
SULLIVAN: It's nuts. So they - the Dodgers and the Yankees had met 11 times in the World Series. This will be the 12th. That's a record. And then somehow, despite the pedigrees, we actually haven't seen the Yankees win a title since 2009. And then the Dodgers, their only title since the '80s was the 2020 season, which was shortened by the pandemic and sort of was seen in the baseball world as having a little bit of an asterisk.
CHANG: OK, so according to you, this is going to be hugely exciting, but do all baseball fans agree?
SULLIVAN: Well, I mean, there's always going to be the haters.
CHANG: (Laughter).
SULLIVAN: And so maybe for you, I can put, like, a little hater hat on, play a little pretend.
CHANG: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let me see that hat.
SULLIVAN: Say you grew up with a small-market team like the Kansas City Royals. My team has been to the playoffs only three times in my entire life.
CHANG: Aww (ph).
SULLIVAN: So imagine those long-suffering Los Angeles Dodgers fans - 12 post-season appearances in a row. Three-year-olds in Los Angeles, Ailsa, have had their team in the playoffs as many times as I have.
CHANG: (Laughter).
SULLIVAN: So then the Yankees - no title since 2009 - I hope that they are crying themselves to sleep on a pile of those 27 World Series trophies they have. So these are two of the richest payrolls in baseball...
CHANG: True.
SULLIVAN: ...According to SpotTrac, which is this, like, service that tracks sports financials. The Yankees' and the Dodgers' rosters this year combined to cost more than the cheapest six entire teams in baseball. So...
CHANG: Wow.
SULLIVAN: Of course they can afford great players, so now they're in the World Series. That's the hater perspective. Personally, I'm jazzed.
CHANG: (Laughter) OK, but there must be something even a hater can enjoy...
SULLIVAN: Of course, yeah.
CHANG: ...About this, right?
SULLIVAN: I think that's you're going to be watching the two best players in baseball today. Shohei Ohtani, the Japanese-born player who came to the U.S. for the 2018 season - he's amazing both at pitching and batting. This is his first post-season appearance. This season he's been recovering from surgery to his pitching elbow, so he's only been batting, but still, his season has been unbelievable. He became the first season - first player ever to hit more than 50 home runs and steal more than 50 bases in the same regular season and somehow has been even more impressive in the post-season.
SULLIVAN: That's my man. OK, what about the Yankees' star?
SULLIVAN: Yeah. Well, so that's Aaron Judge. This season he posted just, like, a historic - like history book-level batting season, 58 home runs in the regular season. He hasn't been quite as dominant in the post-season yet. People are hoping that he'll break out now that he's here. But he is almost certainly going to win the American League MVP, as Ohtani will in the National League. And the fact that these two guys are household names is just, like, a real change of pace for baseball, which has struggled to market its stars in the past. So it is, like, a dream for league officials and for fans to have the meet on the sport's biggest stage. I think this World Series - Yankees-Dodgers, Ohtani versus Judge - is going to show us the absolute ceiling for Major League Baseball right now.
CHANG: Woo-hoo (ph). That is NPR's Becky Sullivan. Thank you, Becky.
SULLIVAN: You're welcome.
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