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World|An Ode to October Baseball
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/19/world/la-dodgers-postseason-louvre-robbery.html
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Good morning, everyone. Or should I say, “Good morning to everyone except fans of the Los Angeles Dodgers.”
Every morning is a good morning for Dodger fans. The rest of us who love baseball are out here hoping to enjoy the magic of October, yearning for the suspense and surprises of playoff baseball. But these darn Dodgers keep winning. And not just winning. This team looks unstoppable and almost superhuman.
They’re like the Goldman Sachs of baseball, with a payroll almost triple the size of the team they crushed in the National League championship, the Milwaukee Brewers. Even as the city of Los Angeles falters, its entertainment industry shrinking and its civic identity shaken, the Dodgers appear more exorbitant and unbeatable than ever.
As a lifelong baseball fan, I’m pleased to see postseason viewership at its highest in 15 years. I love the game for many reasons, but one is how it reveals a certain vulnerability. Baseball players are not as gigantic or as classically athletic as the stars of other professional sports. There’s an imperfection to them: They can be short, skinny, kind of chubby or kind of slow.
And they’re not covered in armor and headgear. We can see their expressions — pride, embarrassment, anger or elation — after a miraculous play or a humiliating stumble. That makes us feel as if we know them. It makes baseball’s characters, subplots and soap operas irresistible.
It’s why I’ve been so captivated by Pat Murphy, the Brewers’ manager. He’s a former boxer who has been married three times, survived a heart attack and alcohol addiction, and has Bruce Springsteen lyrics tattooed on his body.
