The last time the lasting historical footprint of a World Series was left by the losing team was the night of Carlton Fisk’s waved-in homer in Game 6 of the 1975 series. The one before that came when the Chicago White Sox tanked the series for the sake of gamblers in 1919. In both those series, the team that won, Cincinnati and Cincinnati respectively, have been rendered afterthoughts after the fact. Such is our addiction to narrative; nothing is ever truly new—not even Terry Rozier.
Now that the World Series is heading back to Toronto and the Blue Jays are closing in on the title nobody believed them capable of claiming, the Dodgers may be vying to join that list of overwhelming and historic losers. It was the Dodgers that won Game 3, or Games 3 and 3A, the 18-inning masterwork that ended with Freddie Freeman’s homer just before midnight. That game gave us a lifetime of reminders about the joys of baseball; everything that has happened since has conspired to make it a quaint little curio.
