A humiliated, scandal-plagued New York faces LA in the World Series

When the Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Yankees last met in the World Series in 1981, there was no question which city was the frontrunner.

The Yankees had beaten the Dodgers in humiliating fashion in 1977 and 1978 and took a 2-0 lead in the 1981 Fall Classic.

Beyond baseball, New York still held cultural dominance. Despite going bankrupt and struggling with crime, the Big Apple was on top of the world The City, an electric place where anything could happen.

And some New Yorkers loved to make fun of Los Angeles, from the cover of New Yorker Magazine showing LA as a point seen from 9th Avenue to Woody Allen dismissing LA as a city, whose “only cultural advantage is being able to turn right at a red light” (which, to be fair, is a major cultural advantage).

Los Angeles had recently overtaken Chicago to become America's second-largest city, but still felt far behind with its puny skyline, suburban sprawl and relative lack of cultural sophistication.

“We were in this 1970s mindset. All car-oriented, smog everywhere,” said Paul Haddad, a Dodgers historian. Haddad remembers going to Dodgers games and even if he didn't bring a radio, he could hear Vin Scully's voice as he walked through the crowd because so many other fans had their transistors on.

But in a sign of things to come for both cities, the Dodgers recovered from a 2-0 deficit to win the 1981 championship. The two teams meet again at Dodger Stadium for the World Series starting Friday, and the dynamic of civic power has shifted.

LOS ANGELES, CA – OCTOBER 25: Manager Tommy Lasorda #2 of the Los Angeles Dodgers hugs Steve Yeager #7 after he hits a home run to give the Dodgers the lead while Pedro Guerrero #28 leads the charge in Game 5 leading the dugout of the 1981 World Series against the New York Yankees on October 25, 1981 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Bruce Bennett Studios via Getty Images Studios/Getty Images)

(Bruce Bennett/Getty Images North America)

Fans can look out from the stadium's parking lot at a different Los Angeles, dotted with skyscrapers stretching across the basin. LA's cultural reputation has also increased dramatically over these 43 years. There's even a subway – although New Yorkers would rightly argue that it doesn't compare. A recent video released by LA Metro showed, seemingly without irony, that it's a 25-minute walk from Dodger Stadium to the nearest subway station. In New York, the train is about 100 feet from Yankee Stadium.

And New York? It's still New York, but it's a little unassuming these days. There is chaos in the city: Mayor Eric Adams has been indicted for allegedly accepting bribes in exchange for favors for Turkish businessmen and diplomats. Many of his top employees have resigned or been pushed out as multiple federal investigations loom.

Adams — who says every week is a tough week when you're mayor of New York City — told The Times that the biggest difference between the 1981 and 2024 World Series in New York is public safety. The last time the two teams faced each other was in the midst of the crack epidemic; The number of murders in 1981 was the highest recorded at the time.

Adams remembers the battles between the Yankees and Dodgers in the 1970s, watching Mr. October – whom he called Jesse but who the rest of the world knows as Reggie Jackson.

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, May 15, 2024 – Passengers ride the Metro Red Line in Los Angeles on Wednesday. (Wally Skalij/Los Angeles Times)

(Wally Skalij/Los Angeles Times)

“What I remember most is watching him hit those home runs out of the park,” he said, referring to Jackson’s three-home run game in 1977.

He bet a classmate $2 that the Yankees would win. Clever.

Adams argues that New York is safer and better heading into the 2024 World Series. But others are less optimistic about the current mood in New York.

“The Yankees truly carry the hopes and dreams of many New Yorkers as they are one of the few bright spots we have now as we watch the mayor and his coterie face federal charges,” said Evan Roth Smith, a New York pollster and campaign consultant.

Roth Smith said the upcoming World Series reminds New Yorkers of another time, when the Bronx Bombers seemed to reach the World Series every year and were part of New York's post-9/11 comeback story.

However, after winning the World Series in 2009, the Yankees fell into a long championship drought, “and the development of the city also seemed to change during that time,” Roth Smith said. “That’s when the face of New York started to change – (increasing) cost of living problems, declining quality of life.”

Still, Roth Smith said, he's not sure whether New Yorkers look to the other coast with envy, or even envy at all.

“I think a lot of New Yorkers think of no place other than New York,” he said.

Die-hard Angelenos feel the same way.

Dodger Stadium

(Arash Markazi / Los Angeles Times)

“LA is long past the point of even caring what New York thinks. “LA is a complicated, world-class city in its own way,” said David Ulin, a Los Angeles historian who grew up in New York City. “In Los Angeles in 1981 there was more of a feeling of wanting to prove something. Part of that had to do with the fact that the same team had lost two World Series in a row to the Yankees.”

For Ulin and many others who grew up in New York, hatred of the Dodgers was as ingrained in their minds as hatred of an ex. The Dodgers had let them down, let the city down.

“They broke my grandfather’s heart when they left,” Ulin said.

The city's swaggering character was personified by Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, who ran the team with an iron fist, driving managers and general managers out of the stadium, then bringing them in and pushing them out again. He spent more on baseball than any other owner and turned the Yankees into an evil empire in the eyes of many purists.

The combative owner even claimed to have gotten into a fist fight with Dodgers fans in an elevator at the Hyatt Wilshire Hotel in 1981 after the Dodgers won three straight in LA to take a 3-2 lead in the World Series. No one knew whether to believe the fight was real.

“The next day I showed up (at work) with a bandaged hand and said, 'I don't know what happened, but I had to beat that guy up,'” said Mike Lupica, a longtime sports columnist for the New York Daily News reported on the 1981 World Series. “Just cheap New York humor.”

The death on Tuesday of one of the stars of the 1981 World Series, Dodgers pitcher Fernando Valenzuela, highlighted how much Los Angeles has changed for Latinos, said Ruben Martinez, a professor of literature and writing at Loyola Marymount University.

Dodger pitcher Fernando Valenzuela goes through their first full practice with Mike Scioscia since the strike on August 1, 1981.

(Los Angeles Times)

“It's poignant to think about how much his presence crystallized something that was in flux and was becoming more apparent in the 1980s, which was the political and cultural presence of Latinos in this city. “He was the harbinger of that,” said Martínez.

There were hardly any Latin American politicians back then, Martinez said. The expulsion of Latino families from Chavez Gorge in 1959 to build Dodger Stadium was relatively recent. Forty years later everything is different.

“We are by no means a perfect, multicultural paradise. We are divided by class and racial divides. But look at City Hall. Now we can have corrupt Latino politicians like we had corrupt Anglo politicians back then,” Martinez said.

While New York is mired in investigations surrounding City Hall, Martinez said, Los Angeles is just emerging from its own City Hall scandal in 2022, when a tape showing Latino council members making racist or insensitive comments was leaked to the media, leading to the Resignation led by Council President Nury Martinez.

LA Mayor Karen Bass

(Christina House/Los Angeles Times)

“The division in the City Council also reflects real divisions on the streets of LA,” Martinez said.

While the city is not in as tense a moment as it was in 1992, when riots erupted in the streets following the acquittal of the officers who beat Rodney King, Martinez said tension is in the air. There's a homelessness crisis that coincides with a fentanyl crisis on the streets, retailers are locking up more merchandise to deter shoplifters, metal thieves are making their way with entire streetlights, and sometimes destructive, sometimes deadly street takeovers are on the rise.

All of these problems are preparing Los Angeles to deal with the Olympics in four years, with the World Series serving as a sort of mini dress rehearsal for the international spectacle to come.

Mayor Karen Bass noted that the same situation occurred in 1981, when the 1984 Olympics were just three years away.

New York Mayor Eric Adams

(John Minchillo/Associated Press)

“Perhaps it is the Olympic magic that reinforces the spirit of the times. It’s the same kind of excitement,” she told the Times.

Mayor Adams said he was willing to bet on the Yankees again, this time against Bass.

“It will be more than the two dollars I earned with my classmate. We will come up with a friendly item to exchange,” he said. “She’s invited here to our victory parade.”

Mayor Bass agreed, at least as far as the bets were concerned.

“Whatever we’re going to bet, we’ll figure it out,” she said.

For those strong enough to brave Friday traffic with a World Series game, a Lakers game and numerous other events in Los Angeles, Bass had a message.

“I would say take the subway,” she said.