The 12th World Series meeting between the Dodgers and Yankees will easily be the most expensive.
While fans paid about $5.50 face value for the teams’ first World Series meeting in 1941, when the Dodgers were still playing in Brooklyn, anyone now looking for tickets in the Bronx or Los Angeles can expect at least four figures payable on the secondary market.
Currently, no re-ticketing sites are offering anything less than $1,000 for Game 1 on Friday, which has caused some consternation among baseball’s two biggest fans.
‘Unbelievable!!!’ wrote one fan on X. “Maybe I should skydive to Yankee Stadium for free.”
“AK is the new $250 plus fees,” another added.
Dodgers manager Dave Roberts celebrates after their win against the Mets in Game 6
The New York Yankees celebrate after beating the Cleveland Guardians in Game 5 of the ALCS
Fans should expect to pay well over $1,000 for even the worst tickets in LA and the Bronx
A somewhat desperate Dodgers fan asked, “So who wants to be my sugar daddy and buy me tickets to the World Series?”
The demand is understandable given the two markets and the teams’ extensive history together.
Broadway vs. 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.
“I’ve always felt like there’s an underlying need for this,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said Monday. ‘The stars will come out. The eyes will be watching and hopefully we can put on a great Series.’
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.
“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 as a profession.’
One seat behind home plate at Dodger Stadium went for $15,492 on StubHub
Yankees catcher Yogi Berra (8) jumps into the arms of pitcher Don Larsen after Larsen threw the first perfect game in World Series history, beating the Brooklyn Dodgers 2-0 in 1956
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.
A ticket for the first World Series meeting between the Dodgers and Yankees cost $5.50 in 1941
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.
Brooklyn Dodgers pitcher Johnny Podres is lifted by catcher Roy Campanella (39) in 1955
In this combination image, New York Yankees slugger Reggie Jackson hits HRs on three consecutive pitches from three different Dodgers pitchers during Game 6 of the 1977 World Series
Los Angeles lost its first two games in the Bronx in 1981 and then won four in a row — culminating in a 9-2 victory that had Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda dancing. The defeat prompted Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, his 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 in the 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.
Shohei Ohtani and Los Angeles took two out of three when they met Aaron Judge and New York 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.’