NEW YORK — After the final game of October, Dave Roberts weaved through a crowd of people and stepped over golden streamers spread across the lawn of Yankee Stadium. His two children and his wife were by his side. He was supposed to go to the clubhouse to celebrate beating the New York Yankees in the World Series, but members of the Los Angeles Dodgers universe kept stopping him. He shared hugs with Magic Johnson, with Billie Jean King, with Ellen Kershaw.

Along the third base line, a boisterous group of Dodgers fans greeted the players as they came off the field. Ultimately, Roberts survived the hugs and slaps in the back to approach the dugout. During his nine-year tenure as manager, there have been times when he heard jeers and read calls for his resignation. All he felt in the early hours of Thursday morning, after a riveting 7-6 victory in Game 5, was raucous cheering. He doffed his cap and soaked up the admiration as a two-time World Series champion manager.

“It’s a real honor for Dave,” said veteran pitcher Clayton Kershaw. “Dok did an excellent job. He’s done a great job this season.”

The 2024 World Series represented Roberts’ finest hour as a manager. The stakes for this season were set as soon as the team signed Shohei Ohtani last winter: anything less than a championship would be considered a failure. Roberts led a group that met those expectations despite much adversity. He overcame structural problems with the selection. His pitching staff lacked depth. The team played bullpen games in all three postseason series. At times, Roberts strategically squandered opportunities to win.

But in the end, after facing the San Diego Padres, the New York Mets and the Yankees, the Dodgers ended up standing alone on the mountaintop in the major leagues. Roberts can start posing for his bust. He came in this month and was aware that this was his job may not be safe. He will be on track for the Hall of Fame.

Dave Roberts, celebrating with Mookie Betts, bounced back from recent playoff frustration. “I’ve evolved,” he said. (Sarah Stier/Getty Images)

His winning percentage of .618 is the best of any non-Negro Leagues manager. He has never won fewer than 91 games in a full season; the Dodgers have racked up more than 100 wins in five of those eight years. He has now won the World Series more times than Bobby Cox (class of 2014), Whitey Herzog (class of 2010) and Jim Leyland (class of 2024). He won the pennant four times, as many times as Earl Weaver (class of 1996), Dick Williams (class of 2008) and Tom Lasorda (class of 1997).

Roberts called it “humbling” to be named in the same category as Lasorda and former Dodgers skipper Walter Alston, a four-time champion. “I never thought I would be in the same conversation,” Roberts said. “I’m part of a great organization, there are a lot of great people around me supporting me, and we’ve won a lot of ball games. This is something I really wanted. I wanted this one.”

His colleagues were more exuberant.

“Dave is a Hall of Famer,” Dodgers bullpen coach Josh Bard said. “It’s a fact. He won it in several ways. He should have three.”

The sting of the 2017 World Series against the Houston Astros still permeates the organization. The series represented Roberts’ first brush with sustained public disgrace. He was criticized for his bullpen decisions, unaware that Houston had used an illegal sign-stealing system. A year later, when the Dodgers lost the World Series to the Boston Red Sox, then-President Donald Trump insulted one of Roberts’ maneuvers. In 2019, when the Dodgers suffered a shocking early exit, Roberts received hellish criticism.

Roberts achieved some satisfaction in 2020 when the Dodgers won the title. The championship still came with some obligations. Due to the pandemic, the regular season lasted only 60 games. The World Series took place in Arlington, Texas. There was no parade. And while Roberts had some of his best strategic victories in that postseason, the results did not protect him from future vitriol.

Over the next three seasons, the Dodgers could not conjure up postseason success to match their regular season dominance. Roberts was criticized for his bullpen management in 2021, when using starter Julio Urías as a backup backfired, and in 2022, when the final loss to the San Diego Padres included a relief corps collapse. In 2023, after the 84-win Arizona Diamondbacks defeated the 100-win Dodgers, Roberts vowed to prevent a repeat. “I have to find a better way to prepare our guys for the postseason,” Roberts said. “I will own that.”

After spending $1.4 billion this offseason, the Dodgers entered 2024 as the prohibitive betting favorite to win it all. The path to the crown was full of potholes. There was the gambling scandal involving Ohtani’s former interpreter Ippei Mizuhara. There was a flood of injured people. There was a late-season burden on the National League West from the Diamondbacks and Padres.

Andrew Friedman, the president of baseball operations who hired Roberts after the 2015 season, credited Roberts for supporting the group during times of struggle. “His relentless optimism is one of his strengths,” Friedman said. “And of course we have been through a lot this year. Lots of setbacks. His ability to breathe optimism into the group during some of our tougher times and remind them to look around and see how talented the guys out there are was very important.

With only three starting pitchers, Dave Roberts had to expertly navigate his bullpen. (Elsa/Getty Images)

Kiké Hernández played for Roberts for five years before leaving in free agency. Upon returning to the Dodgers in 2023, Hernández noticed that Roberts had improved as a communicator. “Dave is such a nice guy,” Hernández said. “He is such a positive, energetic personality. I think the first few years it was hard for him to have difficult conversations. As a manager and as a good communicator, you must be willing to be 1000 percent honest and have difficult conversations. I feel like that has been the biggest difference.”

As the postseason approached, Dodgers officials discussed how to prepare for October. The players, coaches and executives were all frustrated with the team’s inability to perform after the brief layoff caused by winning the division. The Dodgers finished the season with 98 wins, the best record in baseball. Roberts and the front office relied on players like Hernández and Max Muncy to organize team-building activities during the Wild Card round so that the players could stay together during the break.

The unit could not solve an obvious problem with the selection. There weren’t enough starting pitchers. The list of injured arms included Kershaw and crucial offseason signing Tyler Glasnow, plus youngsters like Gavin Stone, Emmet Sheehan and River Ryan. The Dodgers entered October with a three-man rotation. In a seven-game series, this meant he had to make some tough decisions. There would be some matches where he couldn’t chase down wins.

In his first years at the helm, Roberts excelled at identifying high-leverage situations. This was still an era where many managers assigned roles based on innings, rather than matchups. Roberts used front office data to smother opposing team’s best hitters with his best relievers. However, in an extended series, there were consequences for the repeated use of even the strongest arms.

During Game 3 of the 2017 World Series, Roberts used Kenta Maeda for eight outs despite being significantly behind. The manager felt his offense deserved a chance to get back into the game. But when Maeda returned to action two days later, he served up a backbreaking home run to Jose Altuve. In 2019, Pedro Báez was unavailable for the last match of the season, having played in the previous two matches – both defeats.

“I’ve evolved,” Roberts said earlier this month. He described his “trust tree,” the collection of relievers he believed in most. “Every moment you feel like that’s always the best option, for fear that if you go somewhere else or with another player and it doesn’t work out, you haven’t used your best option at that moment,” he said. “That is the inner struggle that every manager has. I lived it.”

Roberts carried that experience into this postseason. He called on his lower-leverage pitchers to pick up outs in Game 2 and Game 5 against the Mets, leaving a full complement of relievers to win the pennant in Game 6. He repeated the approach against the Yankees. Roberts stuck with the less reliable arms in Game 4. He was confident his group could end the series on Wednesday.

He was right.

“As a short starting pitcher, he had to make some really tough decisions,” Hernández said. “It seemed like he was pushing the right buttons in October.”

Roberts already has a presence in Cooperstown. He donated the shoes he wore to steal second base for the Boston Red Sox in the 2004 American League Championship Series. After 2020, the Hall collected his jacket and his blue Dodger mask, a remnant of the pandemic. He offered his cap in commemoration on Wednesday after the victory. In time, Roberts will have another reason to visit the museum. He can go and see his own face encased in bronze.

(Top photo by Dave Roberts: Alex Slitz/Getty Images)