Aaron Judge of the New York Yankees. Photo: AFP
Hollywood razzle-dazzle faces button-up pinstripe blue as the World Series between the Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Yankees marks a thrilling new chapter in a bitter bicoastal rivalry that goes back decades.
The two teams will meet in the Fall Classic beginning on Friday for the first time since 1981, when the Dodgers clinched the title in Game 6, a tantalizing series with star-studded rosters boasting hot MVP favourites Shohei Ohtani and Aaron Judge in the two largest US sports markets.
But while professional sport is rife with bitter enmity - from the NBA's Celtics and Lakers to the NFL's Patriots and Jets - the New York-Los Angeles rivalry cuts through culture, with each city insisting it is America's best.
"When you're playing New Yorkers against Angelenos - I mean, you've got people who've left New York and Los Angeles who live all over the country," said baseball historian Peter Golenbock.
The author of "Whispers of the Gods: Tales from Baseball's Golden Age, Told by the Men Who Played It" compared the series favourably to last year's, when the Texas Rangers beat the Arizona Diamondbacks in a battle between two comparatively smaller markets.
"The Arizona Diamondbacks and the Texas Rangers had no history. Did anybody care who won that World Series aside from the people in Texas and Arizona? I suspect not," he told Reuters.
Los Angeles Dodgers player Shohei Ohtani Photo: PHOTOSPORT
Ticket prices for Friday's Game 1 at Dodger Stadium started at more than US$1300 on resale platform StubHub on Tuesday as fans scramble to see the Dodgers' Ohtani and Yankees' Judge, the only two players to have more than 50 home runs this season, face off.
It will be the 12th time the two teams have met in the World Series, with their first clash in the championship in 1941, when the cross-country rivals were cross-town foes, with the Dodgers playing in Brooklyn until their 1958 Los Angeles debut.
"The two media capitals - that's a big part of it. There's the historical aspect of it - going all the way back to Brooklyn," said John Thorn, official historian of baseball for MLB.
"The whole history of baseball in New York and California is embraced in this series."
The World Series begins on Friday (US time) at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles.
-Reuters