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Yankees and Dodgers meet for the twelfth time in the World Series in the matchup between Broadway and Hollywood
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Yankees and Dodgers meet for the twelfth time in the World Series in the matchup between Broadway and Hollywood

NEW YORK (AP) — Broadway versus Hollywood. Metro vs highway. Judge vs. Ohtani.

New York’s neighbors turned cross-country rivals, the Yankees and Dodgers, are renewing their star-studded battle in the World Series for the first time in 43 years.

“When you play for the Dodgers and you play for the Yankees, it better feel different,” LA manager Dave Roberts said at Yankee Stadium last June. “If not, then you would be better off doing something else for a profession.”

Two of baseball’s most successful teams face off at Dodger Stadium on Friday, with the Yankees capturing their 41st American League pennant and the Dodgers their 25th National League championship. New York is looking for its 28th World Series title, but first since 2009, the Dodgers their eighth and second in a five-year span.

Yankees pinstripes vs. Dodgers Pantone 294. The Bronx Bombers vs. the descendants of the Dem Bums. The granite-and-limestone of the new Yankee Stadium on chilly fall evenings versus Dodger Stadium in sunny Chavez Ravine, with the San Gabriel Mountains behind the pavilions.

“It’s kind of what the people wanted, what we all wanted,” Dodgers star Mookie Betts said. “It will be a battle between two good teams, many long flights across the country.”

New York is 8-3 against the Dodgers in the most common World Series game, including 6-1 against Brooklyn and 2-2 since the rivalry went Big Apple against Tinseltown.

Mickey Owen, Al Gionfriddo, Cookie Lavagetto, Sandy Amoros, Johnny Podres, Don Larsen, Sandy Koufax and Reggie Jackson created indelible images in the matchup, which started with one of the craziest World Series twists in 1941.

Trailing 2-1 in the Series, Brooklyn led 4-3 with two outs in the ninth inning at Ebbets Field when Tommy Henrich took a swing and missed on strike three by Hugh Casey. The ball bounced away from Owen and rolled toward the Dodgers dugout as Henrich reached base on the dropped third strike. Joe DiMaggio singled, Charlie Keller hit a two-run double and Joe Gordon added a two-run double later in the inning as the Yankees won 7-4 and won the title in five games.

Lavagetto’s two-out, pinch walk-off double in the ninth ended Bill Bevens’ no-hit bid in Game 4 of 1947 and two games later robbed Gionfriddo DiMaggio of a tying three-run homer.

New York defeated the Dodgers again in 1949, 1952 and 1953, frustrating the fans in Flatbush, but Brooklyn finally won the title in 1955 when Podres pitched a Game 7 shutout at Yankee Stadium and Gil Hodges drove in both runs. Amoros kept the lead when he made a running catch on Yogi Berra’s sixth-inning drive into the leftfield corner with two on and passed to shortstop Pee Wee Reese, who threw first to Hodges and doubled Gil McDougald. These players were celebrated in Roger Kahn’s 1972 book “The Boys of Summer.”

Larsen threw the only perfect game of the World Series in the fifth game of 1956 in the Bronx, Berra jumped into his arms after the final out, and the Yankees won Game 7 behind Johnny Kucks’ three-hit shutout in what was the last World Series turned out to be. Series game at Ebbets Field.

Walter O’Malley moved the Dodgers to California after the 1957 season, and Koufax had an interlocking “LA” on his cap instead of a “B” when he hit a then Series-record 15 in the 1963 opener in Yankee Stadium. The rivalry did not resume until 1977 with the first of three matches in a five-year period.

Jackson’s three home runs led the Yankees to a decisive victory in Game 6 of 1977. The Yankees won another six-game Series the following year, highlighted by third baseman Graig Nettles’ diving stops on Reggie Smith, Steve Garvey and Davey Lopes.

Los Angeles lost its first two games in the Bronx in 1981 and then won four in a row — culminating in a 9-2 win that had Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda dancing. The defeat prompted Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, his right hand bandaged after an alleged fight with Dodgers fans in a hotel elevator, to issue a written apology “to the people of New York and to New York Yankees fans everywhere world.”

Both teams feel the history their predecessors created.

“You put on that jersey and those pinstripes, it just feels different,” Yankees slugger Juan Soto said.

Los Angeles took two of three when they met in a much-hyped series in June.

Roberts is reminded of history as he approaches Dodger Stadium.

“I can’t believe I’m driving up Vin Scully Way on my way to work,” he said. “It’s overwhelming, but I try not to let my mind go there too often; I’m just trying to do my job.”

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APMLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb