Ranking MLB’s 8 Best World Series Matchups Since 2000 | News, Scores, Highlights, Stats, and Rumors

From one loud perspective, the matchup is everything wrong with Major League Baseball. Two of the league’s two highest payrolls are squaring off, and one inevitably will win the World Series. Gross.

It’s a glorification of snobby New York and better-than-you Los Angeles. I don’t need that. It’s a dream for media executives and spoiled, entitled fanbases. No, thank you.

Also, you know, pretty cool!

When the franchises were crosstown rivals in the 1940s and 1950s, they played in the World Series seven times. But since the Dodgers’ move to L.A., it’s occurred only four times and not since 1981. Baseball is beloved for its nostalgia, and anyone who’s 43 or younger—and, really, a few more years—has never actually seen this matchup on the biggest stage.

Plus, it’s not just Aaron Judge vs. Shohei Ohtani. While they’re both on Hall of Fame tracks, so are Juan Soto, Gerrit Cole, Freddie Freeman and Mookie Betts with Giancarlo Stanton in the discussion.

Watch because you love the Yankees, the Dodgers or history. Hate-watch, if you’d like! But it’s a rare, tradition-filled matchup.