This year’s World Series between the Dodgers and Blue Jays may go “beyond the definition of ‘classic’” -- it was a series that “included drama, thrills and spills,” and it just may serve as an opportunity to bring in more baseball fans, according to Jim Alexander of the ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER. There was “a sense on social media especially that the teams and the sport picked up lots of new followers, or at least lots of the curious, as the series went on.” It was “evident” by the comments that a lot of people posting or reacting were “new fans or just getting interested in baseball.” The inclination should not be to “discourage them or their enthusiasm.” Alexander wrote this “massive opportunity, to take those who discovered or rediscovered baseball this fall and turn them into full-time followers and ideally passionate ones, certainly does resemble the turning point for the NBA at the turn of the 1980s,” when Basketball HOFer’s Magic Johnson and Larry Bird in tandem, and then Michael Jordan, turned pro basketball “into a phenomenon” (ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER, 11/2).
BEST EVER? ESPN.com’s Tim Kurkjian writes the Dodgers and Blue Jays just finished the “greatest World Series.” Not “all the games were great,” but all were “marvelously fun, interesting and entertaining.” It was the “greatest World Series because of its compelling storylines, some of which were impossible to believe” (ESPN.com, 11/3). In Chicago, Paul Sullivan writes it is an “argument that never ends because whenever there is a great World Series, we automatically assume it was better than all the ones that preceded it.” It was “baseball the way it was meant to be. … Baseball gave us more than we could’ve asked for in 2025” (CHICAGO TRIBUNE, 11/3). THE ATLANTIC’s Steve Rushin wrote the 2025 postseason “stands with any in baseball history.” The World Series “earned its title” -- in English, Spanish and Japanese; in the U.S. and Canada -- as a “genuine Fall Classic” (THE ATLANTIC, 11/2).
WHAT A RIDE: In Toronto, Steve Simmons wrote, “What a baseball ride this has been … the ride of the past 10 days of World Series shock, excellence and exuberance.” It was a World Series of “twists and plot changes and superb performance.” A series like this could not “end in any regular way” (TORONTO SUN, 11/2). The WALL STREET JOURNAL’s Jason Gay wrote it is “hard to argue that a World Series Game 7 isn’t one of the most riveting stages in sports.” Saturday’s 11-inning epic between the Dodgers and Blue Jays was a “true doozy” (WALL STREET JOURNAL, 11/2).
