Inside the meetings that officially moved the A’s out of Oakland
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Tim Keown, ESPN Senior Writer
THIS WAS John Fisher’s moment. It was a cold and rainy morning at Sutter Health Park in West Sacramento, with the microphone glitching whenever Kings owner Vivek Ranadive tried to heap praise upon the Oakland Athletics owner, but this was the place — the single, solitary place in the entire known universe — where people gathered to willingly extol the virtues of Fisher.
They cheered lustily, and perhaps naively, for this singularly uncharismatic billionaire. He owns something they believe they want and now — temporarily — have. The moment was the announcement that his historically bad baseball team, a team he systematically dismantled and stripped for parts to maximize profits, will play in a minor league ballpark in their neighborhood starting next season. For how long? Two years, three — whatever works. For how much? Well, for nothing, as it turns out.
On this morning, the first Thursday of April, none of it mattered. They cheered because they are employed by him, or might be soon, or by an entity that might profit from what this man owns. They stood and cheered because they gave this man whatever he wanted, despite knowing people in Oakland will lose their jobs and fans in Oakland will lose their team. They stood and cheered despite the piles upon piles of evidence that any affiliation with this man and his baseball franchise is likely to end in frustration and anger.
Ranadive, the dealmaker and owner of the Triple-A Sacramento River Cats, talked about the vision of his “great friend.” The mayor of West Sacramento, Martha Guerrero, addressed Fisher directly: “John, it’s hard work running a team.” Barry Broome, the president and CEO of the Greater Sacramento Economic Council (GSEC), touted Sacramento’s civic bona fides and suggested when the time comes for Major League Baseball to consider expansion, they just might have a champion for their city working on the inside. Later, drunk on the zeal of the moment, Broome said, “I think the Fishers are thrilled with the reception they’re getting today.”
He had to take it on faith. The man himself spoke for roughly 140 seconds. He stumbled through the perfunctories before waving his arm behind him, toward the minor league ballpark and each of its 10,000 seats, and ruminated on how exciting it will be to watch “Athletics players or Aaron Judge” hit homers in “the most intimate ballpark in the big leagues.”
His unwillingness, or inability, to name one of his own players is perhaps understandable. This is a man who, for the past year, has created such a toxic environment in Oakland that he can’t attend even a single one of his team’s games. That most basic act of attentiveness — sitting in the stands — is something he can’t do, despite his operatives continually criticizing Oakland’s fans for the same offense. It is perhaps the most joyless aspect of a joyless enterprise.
But here he was, about a week after thousands of fans in Oakland paid for parking in order to remain outside the stadium on Opening Day and yell at him to sell the team. He will bask in the glory of two or three rent-free seasons in Sacramento before he packs up for Las Vegas. It’s the never-ending formula, one Fisher plays clumsily but somehow successfully: There’s always a city overeager for big league recognition, willing to prostrate itself for the opportunity to stare into the void and believe it’s the sun.
John Fisher: hero.
Who would have thought?
And when the brief ceremony was over, and the wind and the rain swept sideways under the concourse down the left-field line, the hero was gone. Vanished. He shook no hands and took no questions. He walked right past the catered croissants and jugs of coffee and disappeared into the gloom of the late morning, the first to leave his own party.
THE VIEWS FROM the waterfront offices of the A’s in Oakland’s Jack London Square are magnificent: ferries coming in and out, light shimmering off the Bay, San Francisco’s skyline nearly close enough to reach out and touch (the site of the team’s abandoned Howard Terminal project is just a slight lean to the north). In a conference room situated to maximize the view, representatives from the team and the city of Oakland met at 8:30 a.m. on April 2, precisely 49½ hours before the festivities in West Sacramento, to discuss a lease extension at the Oakland Coliseum and settle, once and for all, the team’s fate in the city.
It was an upset of sorts that meetings with Oakland happened in the first place. After the A’s pulled out of a $12 billion project to build a ballpark at Howard Terminal — an undoable ballpark/retail/office deal the city was inching closer and closer to doing — last April, the mayor’s office sat back and waited to see if the team was interested in extending its lease. Spurned and exhausted by what it perceived as the disingenuousness of the A’s negotiating stance, the city was in no mood to make the first overture.
By early February, with no movement from the A’s, the city’s representatives assumed the team had found somewhere else to play. The MLB scheduling deadline for 2025 loomed, and commissioner Rob Manfred had decreed only that the A’s would play “somewhere in the West.” A’s president Dave Kaval floated possibilities with varying levels of feasibility: Oakland, Sacramento, Salt Lake City, the A’s Triple-A stadium in Las Vegas, Oracle Park in San Francisco.
The city went forward with leases for the Oakland Roots and Soul, the men’s and women’s professional soccer teams in the United Soccer League. And then, in mid-February, the team reached out to Oakland, in a move that echoed the clumsy “parallel paths” approach Kaval announced when the team pitted Las Vegas against Oakland.
“Approaching us halfway through February indicated to us it wasn’t super serious,” Oakland chief of staff Leigh Hanson said. “A normal negotiation would have started two months after they pulled out last April. So much trust had deteriorated, but we thought we’d give them the benefit of the doubt and realize their organization was going through a lot of transition. We felt it was our responsibility to the fans and the city to go forward and try to make it work on our terms.”
By April 2, the city was on its fourth meeting with the A’s, though little progress had been made. In this one, as was the case in each of the previous three, Kaval sat at the head of the table. Hanson sat to his left, directly across from A’s chief of staff Miguel Duarte. Oakland councilmember Rebecca Kaplan sat to Hanson’s left, with Alameda County supervisor David Haubert and Oakland policy chief Zach Goldman across from her.
Kaval spoke first, as had become his custom, and expressed surprise that the city’s lease terms had been reported by ESPN two days before the meeting. Those terms, as outlined on sheets passed around the room on this morning, included a five-year lease with a team opt-out after three, a $97 million “extension fee” and an agreement for the A’s to pay for the field conversion when the Roots and Soul begin playing in the Coliseum next year. The city also wanted the A’s to help secure assurances from MLB that the city would receive a one-year window to solicit ownership groups for a future expansion franchise.
Taken collectively, it was a big ask. Broken down individually, the extension fee was clearly the biggest obstacle for the team. With the A’s, money always is. Kaval said $97 million, payable whether the team stayed for five years or opted out at three, was a nonstarter and wondered how the city had come up with that number. He was told that Mayor Sheng Thao’s team had done its research, and the number factored in the cost the team would incur by relocating twice in the next three to five years, the $67 million annually the team receives from NBC Sports for its television rights for being in the Bay Area — a figure, the city says, that includes just $10 million in ad revenue, meaning NBC Sports subsidizes to the tune of $57 million per year — and the sweetheart $1.5 million rent the team currently pays at the Coliseum.
“This is above market rate,” Kaval said, and Hanson agreed. “It is,” she said, “and your deal now is criminally below market.” The city receives no parking revenue from the Coliseum, no cut of the food and beverage sales, only a small share of ticket revenue. The extension fee, Hanson emphasized, was not to be misconstrued as rent; it was simply the cost of staying in Oakland. “The goal,” she said, “is not to make this the cheapest deal possible. The goal is to make this work for the city.”
“Well,” Kaval said. “This isn’t going to work for us.”
Hanson said she shrugged. “It’s your responsibility to decide where you’re going to play baseball,” she said. “We pick up trash and we do cops and we care about economic development, but it’s not our responsibility to house you.”
This was perhaps the clearest sign yet that Oakland’s patience had worn paper-thin, and that the team would have to agree to city-friendly terms or find another place to play. Although the current administration had been in office just 15 months, the cumulative weight of the past 20 years of uncertainty fell on its shoulders. The benefits of staying in Oakland were self-evident: no relocation costs, no need to uproot employees, that television contract available only in the nation’s 10th-largest media market as ranked by Nielsen. And despite its many faults, some of them self-inflicted by the A’s, the Coliseum remains a big league stadium.
Though the city didn’t present financial terms until the fourth meeting, the basic parameters — a five-year lease with the team opt-out — were on the table. Sources say the A’s, however, never laid out an offer sheet, never presented so much as a single piece of paper with demands or suggestions. At one point during the second meeting, in March, Kaval suggested the A’s might be willing to accept “the Raiders’ deal” — two years and $17 million, the arrangement Raiders owner Mark Davis struck for the two lame-duck years in Oakland before he moved his team to Las Vegas.
“First of all,” Hanson said. “Please don’t call it the ‘Raiders’ deal’ — that brings back bad memories for everyone in this town. And second, that’s not going to work.”
The “Raiders’ deal” was the only negotiation tactic Kaval employed, according to sources familiar with the negotiations. There was still some vigorous back and forth, though. Kaval took exception to the city’s offer of a five-year lease, since the team believes its future Vegas ballpark — start date unclear, financing undetermined — on the 9-acre site of the yet-to-be demolished Tropicana Casino and Resort will be ready for the 2028 season, maybe even a year earlier.
Hanson said the city had worked its own numbers there, too, and those numbers indicated the A’s will need five years, minimum, before the Vegas stadium is completed. Left unspoken, sources say, is that significant doubt remains whether the deal in Vegas will happen at all, and the five-year gambit was a hedge against ever having to negotiate with the A’s again.
By the final meeting, Sacramento was already thick in the air. Kaval had made it known the team was in daily conversations with Ranadive and Sacramento, weekly discussions with Salt Lake City. There were those on the Oakland side of the table who believed Sacramento was a done deal before this meeting began — and they weren’t the only ones. Broome, the GSEC CEO, was in the room during the negotiations with Ranadive, and he told ESPN he knew Sacramento was getting the A’s 10 days before the official announcement.
But after that fourth and final meeting with the A’s, and after Kaval’s visceral objection to the $97 million extension fee, the mayor’s staff left the A’s offices at 9:30 and reconvened at City Hall to review the details. The discussions continued throughout the day, and by early evening Hanson got Thao’s approval to present a revised offer: a three-year lease with a $60 million extension fee.
At 7:15 that night, Hanson called Kaval with the new offer. She said he seemed interested — although he would later say the two sides remained “far apart” even with the revision — and he thanked her for the call. Within 24 hours, rumblings that Sacramento was the choice filtered out through the Twitter feed of “Carmichael Dave,” a Sacramento radio personality well-connected to Ranadive and the Kings. The next morning, Kaval called Hanson at 7:36 a.m. to give her the news. Fisher followed, five minutes later, with a call to Thao. By 10 a.m., at about the same time the A’s were on a flight heading for Detroit, Ranadive was standing at the podium, wind whipping his hair, thanking his good friend.
Afterward, Kaval said the decision to choose Sacramento over Oakland was based partly on the abbreviated time frame and partly on factors out of the A’s control, such as the expansion team assurances Oakland sought from MLB. The team had to act quickly, he said, to ensure the league office could put together a 2025 schedule with something other than “TBD” next to the team’s name. In effect, the A’s created an untenable timeline for Oakland, and then used it against them.
At the end of the workday in Oakland, Hanson gathered the mayor’s staff and headed across the street to Fluid 510, their favorite bar, to toast the end — the end of the negotiations and the parallel paths and the false hope and the reading between the lines. They weren’t celebrating the A’s imminent departure so much as the conclusion of a seemingly endless, and endlessly frustrating, back and forth with a team they never felt they could trust.
FISHER CONTINUES TO fail forward: free rent in Sacramento, $380 million in public money in Las Vegas, no accountability in Oakland. He received unanimous approval from the other 29 owners to move to Vegas. MLB, at the behest of Manfred, waived the team’s relocation fee because — according to a league source — it would be too burdensome for Fisher to pay. “So if we say there’s a relocation fee of $2 billion,” the source said. “Realistically, how are we going to get that?”
It’s difficult to see the value Fisher brings to the other 29 teams. He seems to have benefited from a billionaire’s version of the comfort of low expectations. His front office has fielded playoff teams — cheap, brilliantly constructed playoff teams — but those days are so distant they belong to a different era. His team’s payroll is last in the league, but that doesn’t come close to placing it in the proper context. The A’s 2024 payroll of $60 million is 41% lower than the 29th-ranked team, the Pittsburgh Pirates, in a league where even the Tampa Bay Rays and Detroit Tigers field teams with payrolls of more than $100 million. Since Fisher assumed sole ownership of the team in 2016, the team has had the lowest payroll in baseball three times and has never ranked higher than 24th.
The condemnation of Fisher has been widespread. Former Athletics pitcher and current Mets broadcaster Ron Darling said, on air, that he is “appalled” by Fisher’s behavior over the past six months. Broadcasters from the Tigers and the Angels — team employees — have publicly condemned the abandonment of Oakland. Retired pitcher Trevor May, who played for the A’s as recently as last season, appeared on the “Foul Territory” podcast and said, “Losing fans is one thing, but treating them this way sends a message to all fans.”
There could be other options. Golden State Warriors owner Joe Lacob said he has a standing offer to purchase the A’s and build a new ballpark on the Coliseum site, the same offer he made when then-commissioner Bud Selig approved the sale of the team to his old fraternity buddy Lew Wolff — and Fisher — in 2005. “And what team does Lacob own?” the league source asked rhetorically, since the answer is a team that left Oakland for San Francisco.
Meanwhile Kaval, ever the optimist, has touted the idea that Vegas will cure all ills, that the A’s will abandon their Moneyball ways and spend like gamblers on tilt when the Vegas money rolls in. Even if that is true — and history provides no indication that it will be — the A’s face three seasons of further belt-tightening before then. In an all-hands Zoom meeting before the official Sacramento announcement, Kaval informed Oakland staff that there would be significant layoffs at the end of the season. Much of the work done by specific departments — marketing, ticket sales, public relations — will be done by employees of the Kings and River Cats.
The city, which has taken so much of the blame, now will find its citizens jobless. And while the A’s have sought a new home for the past 20 years, only the past eight have been centered on Oakland. Of those eight, two were spent on a doomed-before-it-started downtown site at Laney Community College, and two of the Howard Terminal years were slowed by a pandemic. Even then, the city was within $97 million — the original extension fee was a history-rhymes clapback — of providing Fisher with everything he sought for his $12 billion Howard Terminal mini-city.
None of that mattered within the owners’ fraternity, where patience eroded and Oakland, an easy target of scorn, became nothing more than a problem to be solved. “After 15 years of this, owners are on Rob,” the league source said. “They want to know, ‘What’s happening in Oakland? Let’s go, it’s time to s— or get off the pot.'”
IN WEST SACRAMENTO, there are logistical questions that remain outstanding. The physics of the Triple-A River Cats, a Giants affiliate, and the big league A’s sharing a ballpark have yet to be determined. Significant improvements to Sutter Health Park are necessary to comply with the collective bargaining agreement and receive the approval of the Major League Players Association. Lights will need to be upgraded, bullpens revamped and a second batting cage constructed. The home clubhouse is currently beyond the left-field wall, an arrangement that seems less than optimal.
As the rain fell and the wind blew last Thursday, though, unchecked exuberance ruled the day. Broome said, “The only thing I asked of the Fishers is when they win the World Series in the next three years, they put that parade right in the middle of our town.”
He is speaking about the A’s, a husk of a team. Winning isn’t even a talking point, let alone a goal. Just a few years ago, the front office assembled a vibrant, young core — Matt Chapman, Marcus Semien, Matt Olson, Sean Murphy — that could have contended for years if contending mattered. What remains is bound together by baling wire and twine and revenue sharing.
Broome is undeterred. “All we need is a 19-year-old kid named Vida Blue, a 20-year-old guy named Reggie Jackson,” he said. “We just need three, four, five guys. We need to look in the Dominican Republic for a shortstop, for Omar Vizquel.” (Vizquel is Venezuelan.)
In Sacramento, it all feels fresh and new, the possibilities endless. Ranadive, the man who saved the Kings from a future in Seattle in 2013, stood in front of the smiling crowd and said Sacramento is in “pole position” for a future expansion team. He said it will no longer play “second fiddle” to anyone, even though second fiddle is precisely what they will be if Fisher succeeds in his plan to squat for two or three years before moving to Las Vegas. The A’s aren’t even putting “Sacramento” in their name, opting for the location-free “A’s” or “Athletics,” as if attaching themselves to Sacramento might imply something permanent, or real.
What’s in it for Ranadive? An MLB source insisted Ranadive and Sacramento were promised nothing more than a temporary visit from the A’s. “We don’t even have an expansion process in place,” the source said. “The owners have to vote to explore expansion first, and then put a committee together. There are no guarantees.”
Sources close to the negotiations in both Oakland and Sacramento believe Ranadive is making a calculation that Las Vegas is never going to happen. “Vivek is definitely bright,” one source who requested anonymity said. “He made an assessment: Vegas will eventually fall apart and wherever the team is at that moment is where it will stay. He’s not the only one who believes that.”
Wherever the A’s play in 2028, the team appears eager in 2024 to make amends with a fan base it has pushed away in recent years. After walking away from Oakland and choosing nine acres in a Vegas parking lot, the A’s seem to believe fans will embrace the nostalgia of the past 56 years and bid a fond farewell.
“We think there are a lot of people who are excited to come out and see a final game at the Coliseum,” Kaval said. “I’m hopeful that can be a positive experience, and we’re going to do everything within our control to make it positive. New memories can be made, and we have a whole season to do that.”
Kaval is standing a few feet from the podium at Sutter Health Park, far enough under the overhang to be free of the rain. He is talking fast, his eyes big, the words a torrent of spin and hope and his own unique brand of untethered optimism. He is speaking for a fan base that, rightly or wrongly, loathes both him and Fisher, to the point where it stays away from the ballpark or attends games just to protest their very existence. And now he is standing in the concourse of the team’s temporary future home, a nice minor league ballpark near the Sacramento River with views of the Tower Bridge and the city beyond, a 15-minute walk from the Kings’ state-of-the-art arena, ready to cleanse the past.
“I know people are receptive,” Kaval said. “I think it can be done.”
There will be promotions. Cheap seats. Alumni events. Nods to past glory. Family fun. Seventy-four home games remain on the schedule. Come on out, Kaval says, and help the A’s send the old gray lady off with a bang. “It’s baseball,” he says, eyes widening, “and baseball is all about having fun.”
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Tim Kurkjian
We are borrowing, with permission, from brilliant writer Steve Rushin, the lede from his game story in Sports Illustrated from the 1991 World Series between the Twins and Braves. The truth is inelastic when it comes to the 88th World Series. It is impossible to stretch. It isn’t necessary to appraise the nine days just past from some distant horizon of historical perspective. Let us call this World Series what it is, now, while its seven games still ring in our ears: the greatest that was ever played.
With apologies to 1991, the Los Angeles Dodgers and Toronto Blue Jays just finished the greatest World Series. Not because all the games were great — some weren’t. All were flawed, but all were marvelously fun, interesting and entertaining. It was the greatest World Series because of its compelling storylines, some of which were impossible to believe: an 18-inning game, a historic pitching performance by a 22-year-old, the first pinch-hit grand slam in World Series history, the first World Series game to begin with back-to-back home runs, the first game-ending, 7-4 double play in World Series history. It featured a bizarre, three-pitch opera from a pitcher who hadn’t worked in relief in seven years, the final major league game for the greatest pitcher of this era and a Game 7 for the ages, for all ages, a masterpiece featuring an unforgettable, ironman pitching performance that we might never see again.
The Blue Jays, who finished last in the American League East in 2024, were in the World Series for the first time since repeating as world champions in 1992 and 1993. The Dodgers were trying to become the first team to repeat as world champions since the New York Yankees from 1998 to 2000. In Game 7, Toronto started Max Scherzer, 41, the oldest pitcher to start a Game 7, the man who also started the last Game 7 — in 2019 for the Washington Nationals. The Dodgers started the most remarkable player in the history of baseball, Shohei Ohtani, who was working on three days’ rest. Toronto’s Vladimir Guerrero Jr., so dominant in this postseason, called it “the biggest day of my life in baseball.”
Game 7 was epic, one of only six Game 7s of the World Series to go extra innings. The Dodgers fell behind 3-0 but won 5-4 in 11 breathtaking innings, in part because Dodgers manager Dave Roberts used all four of his aces, Ohtani, Blake Snell, Tyler Glasnow and the World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto. Yamamoto threw 96 pitches the day before in winning Game 6, then miraculously pitched the final 2⅔ innings of Game 7, throwing 34 pitches, to become the fourth pitcher to win Game 6 and Game 7 of the World Series. It was one of the greatest pitching performances in World Series history.
“He is one of the greatest pitchers on the planet,” Dodgers catcher Will Smith said. “What he did tonight was amazing.”
It was Smith’s home run off Shane Bieber in the 11th inning that provided the winning run, and made it six years in a row that a player named Will Smith has been a part of a World Series-winning team. And yet Smith’s game-winning homer wasn’t the biggest homer of the night for the Dodgers. Second baseman and No. 9 hitter Miguel Rojas, who helped win Game 6 with four terrific defensive plays, stunningly homered with one out in the ninth inning off Blue Jays closer Jeff Hoffman to tie the score, Rojas’ first extra-base hit of the postseason. Rojas joined Hall of Famer Bill Mazeroski in 1960 as the only players in World Series history to hit a game-winning or game-tying home run in the ninth inning of a Game 7.
It was a devastating loss for the Blue Jays, who played so exceptionally well in the first five games. They scored the most runs (105) in a single postseason of any team in history, but when they needed to get a big hit, they didn’t: In Game 6, they went 1-for-9 with runners in scoring position; in Game 7, they went 3-for-17. Don’t blame infielder Ernie Clement, whose 30 hits were the most hits ever by any player in one postseason. In the ninth inning, he was robbed of a World Series-winning hit when center fielder Andy Pages, a defensive replacement, made a spectacular leaping catch in left-center field with two outs and the bases loaded. An inning later, Clement, a brilliant defensive infielder who uses a Mizuno glove that he bought from an elderly Japanese woman on eBay, put his arm around Blue Jays dugout reporter Hazel Mae when he noticed that her head was down in disappointment when the Blue Jays didn’t win in the ninth.
“Are you OK?” Clement asked her. “You’re going to be OK. Don’t worry. We’re going to be OK, too. Don’t worry.”
This series was full of worry. The only way to try to make sense of these stressful seven games is to view them chronologically. In Game 1, the Blue Jays started Trey Yesavage, who made his major league debut Sept. 15. Yesavage pitched four innings in an 11-4 victory in Game 1, which featured Bo Bichette‘s first game since Sept. 6 — he singled in his first at-bat on a 3-0 pitch. Bichette, Toronto’s primary shortstop, played second base for the first time in his major league career, marking the first time since 1931 that an infielder started a World Series game at a position he had never played in the big leagues.
The game was broken open in the sixth on a pinch-hit grand slam — a first in World Series history — by Addison Barger, who slept the night before on a pullout couch in the hotel room of teammate Davis Schneider. “I woke up on my friend’s couch the morning of the game, and after the game, the Hall of Fame asked me for my spikes,” Barger said.
The aptly named Barger, one of several Toronto players who became folk heroes in October, was asked why he swings so hard on every pitch.
“I was the smallest kid on our team — I was 4-foot-10 as a freshman, I was 5-feet, 90 pounds as a sophomore,” he said. “My dad had me play up. I was a small 13-year-old playing against 18-year-olds. My only hope was to swing as hard as I could.”
Game 2 featured the remarkable Yamamoto, who, among other preparations for his constant chase of the perfect pitch, throws a javelin before games and does an insane stretching routine that is painful just to watch. He silenced the relentless Blue Jays lineup on four hits to become the first pitcher since Curt Schilling in 2001 to throw back-to-back complete games in one postseason. “He is hard to hit because he has elite command, his delivery is deceptive, everything comes out of the same arm slot and he is short [5-foot-10],” said Blue Jays infielder Isiah Kiner-Falefa. “With Justin Verlander [who is tall and has a high release point], you can see his fastball coming out of the sky. With [Yamamoto], you can’t see it because he is short.”
Dodgers pitcher Clayton Kershaw said, “If I could do it over again, I would throw a javelin in between starts.”
Kershaw, the greatest pitcher of his generation, pitched in Game 3. He was one of 19 pitchers, 10 of them Dodgers (a record number for a World Series game), to work the 18-inning game, which lasted 6 hours, 39 minutes and included 609 pitches. It is tied (in innings) for the longest World Series game, matching 2018’s Game 3 between the Boston Red Sox and Dodgers, also at Dodger Stadium. In 2018, Max Muncy won the game with a walk-off homer in the 18th. Freddie Freeman won this one — becoming the first player in major league history to hit two walk-off home runs in the World Series.
“If Freddie didn’t end with a homer, I would have,” Muncy said, laughing, the next day. “So amazing. A first baseman leads off the 18th with a walk-off homer on a 3-2 pitch. Same as I did [in 2018].”
Muncy agreed that if he had hit another 18th-inning, walk-off homer seven years later, “your head would have exploded.”
And yet, Freeman wasn’t the biggest star of the game. Ohtani had nine plate appearances and reached base nine times: No one in World Series history had reached seven times in one game. Only four others in major league history had reached base nine times in a game, regular or postseason. Ohtani hit two doubles and two home runs in his first four at-bats — the second player with four extra-base hits in a World Series game — and walked his final five plate appearances, four of them intentionally, another World Series record. Until that game, only Albert Pujols in 2011 had been walked intentionally with the bases empty in a World Series game. And Ohtani did it three times, including twice in a three-inning span.
“I mean, really, 9-for-9? Are you kidding me?” Freeman said in amazement. “Only Shohei could do that.”
And yet Ohtani wasn’t the best story of the game, either. Will Klein, who had thrown 22 innings in his major league career, pitched the final four scoreless innings to get the victory.
“I looked around in the 14th inning and realized I was the only one left in the pen,” he said.
Klein spent the first three rounds of the playoffs in the Get Hot Camp in Arizona, where Dodger players train just in case they need to be added to the roster because of an injury. He threw a simulated game at Dodger Stadium before the World Series and threw strikes. “[The Dodgers] called me and told me to go to Toronto,” Klein said. “I didn’t think there was any chance I’d be activated; I thought I was just a taxi squad guy. Then, they told me that I was going to be activated for the World Series. I thought . . . sweet!”
Klein threw 72 pitches, twice as many as he had thrown in a major league game, in Game 3.
“I got hundreds and hundreds of text messages after the game, some from people I didn’t know,” Klein said. Sandy Koufax, the legendary Dodger pitcher, came into the clubhouse after the game to congratulate him.
“I didn’t know what to say, I could barely speak,” Klein said. “I mean. . .he is Sandy Koufax!”
Game 4 featured — again — the greatness of Vladimir Guerrero Jr. In the third inning, he gave the Blue Jays a 2-1 lead with a two-run homer off Ohtani, a marvelous at-bat for the growth of the game. It was two of the biggest stars in baseball — one from the Dominican Republic, but born in Canada, the other from Japan — going head-to-head on the biggest stage in baseball. Guerrero won this confrontation, as he won most matchups in the postseason: He hit .397 with 8 home runs, 15 RBIs and only 7 strikeouts, astounding in this strikeout era. And now, the world knows that Guerrero, 26, isn’t some lumbering, unathletic first baseman. He has a great instinct for the game. He has won a Gold Glove at first base, he is a finalist for another this year and he made two great defensive plays in Game 7. He also is a well-above-average runner.
“Sometime in July, I went to Vladdy with a bar chart that I put together about great players and their running speed, and the way they run the bases,” Blue Jays manager John Schneider said. “The graph had [Aaron] Judge, [Manny] Machado and Vladdy. I asked him, ‘Who is the fastest of these three?’ He didn’t know. I said, ‘Vladdy, you are.”’
Guerrero’s homer off Ohtani gave the Blue Jays the lead for good, but they tacked on four runs in the seventh to seal the win. The biggest hit was provided by Clement, who personifies the gritty Blue Jays. He was released by the A’s in 2022 after going 1-for-18. He made a swing change in 2023, and that has resulted in him becoming a quality every-day player in the major leagues.
“Ernie shoots 65 in golf,” Davis Schneider said. “He’s one of those guys who is good at everything. Hockey. pingpong. Everything.”
Davis Schneider, who was nearly released three times in the minor leagues, also personifies the gutsy Blue Jays. “All the guys on this team took a different path to get here,” he said. “It’s one reason we are here.”
Schneider, hitting leadoff in Game 5 due to the intercostal injury to DH George Springer, led off the game with a homer off Snell, who had allowed one homer in his previous 50 innings. Guerrero followed with another homer, marking the first time in history that the first two hitters homered in a World Series game.
That was plenty for Yesavage, who was making his eighth major league start, five in the postseason, to join Joe Black (1952) as the only pitchers in history to start more games in the postseason than they had in their regular-season careers. Yesavage was unhittable for seven innings. He became the first rookie to strike out 12 in a World Series game. He became the first pitcher to strike out 12 and not walk a batter in a Series game. He joined Koufax as the only pitchers with 10 strikeouts in the first five innings of a World Series game.
“I never met him until he got here [Sept. 15]. I might have met him in spring training, but if I did, I don’t remember,” Davis Schneider said. “Now, he’s doing amazing things. He is such a modest dude walking around the clubhouse. He has made the best hitters in the world look like they’ve never swung a bat before.”
Game 6 was a classic — not on the Game 6 level of Buckner in 1986, Puckett in 1991, Freese in 2011, Fisk in 1975 or Carter in 1993, but its finish was jarring. Yamamoto started. One Blue Jay said before the game, “We know he is on a 1,000-pitch count tonight.” Instead, Yamamoto was taken out after six innings and 96 pitches with a 3-1 lead. Roki Sasaki had a shaky eighth inning, then hit Alejandro Kirk to start the ninth. Barger followed with a ringing line drive to left-center field. The ball impossibly lodged between the padding on the outfield wall and the warning track. Dodgers center fielder Justin Dean, cued by left fielder Enrique Hernandez, threw up his hands in hopes the umpires would rule it an automatic two bases, which they did.
“I have never seen a ball get lodged in there,” John Schneider said.
“I’ve tried to wedge a ball in there,” Davis Schneider said. “And I couldn’t do it.”
“I walk every stadium before every series to see what might come up,” Dodgers third-base coach Dino Ebel said. “I walked that outfield area, and I said, ‘This is clean. Nothing can get stuck in there.’ Then, it did.”
It was a bad break for the Blue Jays, who might have scored a run on that play, and Barger might have made it to third with no outs if the ball had caromed instead of plugged. In came Glasnow, who was supposed to start Game 7, but instead was summoned for his first relief appearance since 2018. He got Clement to pop out to first base on the first pitch. Two pitches later, Andres Gimenez hit a soft liner to left.
“I thought, ‘Please don’t drop, please don’t drop,”’ Glasnow said.
Hernandez, a natural infielder, charged the ball like an infielder, caught it in the air on the run and made a quick throw to Rojas, who made a terrific catch. Barger was doubled off second base, one of the biggest baserunning mistakes in World Series history: It is the only postseason game to end on a 7-4 double play. Thanks to Hernandez and Rojas, Glasnow got three outs on three pitches for his first career save.
“The [defensive metric] card had me playing shallow on that play, but I then moved in seven feet,” Hernandez. “If he hits it over my head, I will live with the consequences. I was not going to let a ball land in front of me. I trust my instincts over a computer any day.”
“It was a bad read by me,” Barger said.
The bad read set up one of the greatest Game 7s in World Series history, one that cemented the Dodgers’ dynasty. They won their third World Series in this decade and became the first team since the Yankees in 1953-58 to win three World Series and have a winning percentage of .630 in a six-year span. The Blue Jays did something equally important in this postseason: They showed the world how the game can be played, with elite defense, putting balls in play, treating every at-bat like a fistfight, valuing the hit, not just the home run, and taking the game to the opponent. They also showed that character, chemistry and camaraderie in the clubhouse, and on the field, are greatly valued.
“I just played a season with my 30 best friends,” Clement said after losing Game 7. “I just finished crying for about an hour. This is the closest team I have ever been on. I just love coming to work with these guys.”
There has never been a bad read by my friend Steve Rushin, from whom I borrowed the lede to his epic story from the epic 1991 World Series. He had watched this postseason from afar, and like so many people across the country, across the globe, he marveled at Ohtani, Yamamoto, Yesavage, Glasnow, Vladdy, Ernie, and all the other stars, storylines and sensational plays that produced the greatest World Series ever.
He texted me before Game 7.
Speaking for all baseball fans, it read: “What a time to be alive.”
I’m going to try my best to stay cheerful despite sitting to write this minutes after the Toronto Blue Jays lost in Game 7 of the World Series in devastating fashion. In truth, I need a distraction. It was either this or polishing off the two giant bags of Doritos (Cool Ranch and Nacho Cheese, naturally) that are currently in my cupboard. I will still likely do that at some point.
Anyway, let’s talk hockey. Not to throw salt in the wound of Toronto sports fans, but we have to focus on the Montreal Canadiens, who have been an absolute wagon this season, going 9-3-0 in their first 12 games and sitting on top of the Atlantic Division.
The Habs have played in some very tight and exciting games — nine of their first 12 have been decided by one goal. And there’s one particular player who is thriving in those clutch situations: Cole Caufield has three overtime game-winning goals this season. In the process, he has set the record for most overtime goals in Habs history (11, passing Howie Morenz and Max Pacioretty).
“Goal” Caulfield was one of the more noticeable names absent from Team USA’s 4 Nations Face-Off roster last season, and with a start like this, it’s becoming increasingly challenging to justify leaving him off the roster for the Olympics.
It’s not just the goals — Caufield has 10, tied for the league lead — it’s the clutch nature of a good chunk of those goals. On Oct. 16 against the Nashville Predators, Caufield took a pass from Lane Hutson (after Hutson saved the puck from going in on an empty net), and scored with 19.5 seconds to go in the third period to send it to overtime. Then, with two seconds left in the extra frame, Caufield called game to give the W for Montreal.
On Frozen Frenzy night, Caufield notched the first goal of the game against the Seattle Kraken — and was the star again with the game winner in OT after the Habs blew a 3-0 lead.
Performances like this are becoming commonplace for Habs fans — and would be a welcome sight for U.S. fans this February in Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo, too.
Jump ahead:
Games of the week
What I loved this weekend
Hart Trophy candidates
Social post of the week
Stick taps
Biggest games of the week
Thursday, 7 p.m. ET | ESPN+
For all the reasons above, I can’t wait for Habs vs. Devils. It’s the first meeting of the season between two teams with a lot of young talent, and speed for days … there’s just so much to watch here.
Jack Hughes and Jesper Bratt would be in the running for a tag-team Hart Trophy if it existed.
Tuesday, 7 p.m. ET | ESPN+
This will be a good measuring-stick game for Buffalo, one of those “are they legit?” kind of litmus tests. Utah has had a … Mammoth start, going 8-3-0 overall, but all three losses have come on the road.
Thursday, 7:30 p.m. ET | ESPN+/Hulu
This is maybe (?) one of the final chapters of the legendary Alex Ovechkin vs. Sidney Crosby rivalry matchups. “The Drop” with Greg Wyshynski and yours truly will have a special episode chronicling the history of 8 vs. 87 prior to the game on NHL on ESPN YouTube.
The Caps have yet to really get rolling, while the Pens are 8-3-2. Don’t tell Sid this team was supposed to miss the playoffs according to all of those preseason predictions!
Other key matchups this week
Tuesday, 8 p.m. ET | ESPN+/Hulu
Tuesday, 10 p.m. ET | ESPN+
Thursday, 10 p.m. ET | ESPN+/Hulu
Saturday, 12:30 p.m. ET | ESPN+
Saturday, 7 p.m. ET | ESPN+
Saturday, 10 p.m. ET | ESPN+
Themed game of the week
Aside from co-hosting ESPN’s official Star Wars podcast “Never Tell Me The Odds” with Ryan McGee and Clinton Yates, I chronicle and document Star Wars theme nights across the hockey world. I take this responsibility very seriously — “This is the way,” some would say.
The next such extravaganza will be courtesy of the Philadelphia Flyers, as they host the Ottawa Senators for a Saturday afternoon showcase that will be strong with the force.
The Flyers have confirmed that all fans in attendance will receive a Star Wars poster, and those that splurge for the special ticket package will also get the Flyers-Star Wars mashup t-shirt.
The Flyers have also arranged for Jedi training by the 501st Legion, the local chapter one of the popular Star Wars costumed brigades that attend events across the country.
Noted Star Wars fans on the team include Trevor Zegras and Bobby Brink. Both told ESPN that “Revenge of the Sith” is their favorite Star Wars movie; Brink is a Obi-Wan Kenobi fan, while Zegras prefers C-3PO. Brink is an avid “Star Wars Battlefront” player, while Zegras enjoys “Lego Star Wars.”
When asked which Star Wars character they would count on most to score in a shootout, Brink stuck with Obi-Wan, but Zegras landed on Darth Vader: “He could move the goalie out of the way with the lightsaber.”
What I loved this weekend
A poignant lesson on life, priorities and the time we have with our loved ones. Brad Marchand missed a Panthers game this week to attend the funeral of Selah, the 10-year-old daughter of his longtime friend and trainer, J.P. McCallum. While in Halifax, Marchand also volunteered as a coach for the team McCallum coaches, March & Mill Company Hunters of the Nova Scotia Under-18 Hockey League, a team that Marchand co-owns with former Boston Bruins teammate Kevan Miller.
In Marchand’s first game back with the Panthers on Saturday, he scored the game-opening goal. Then, he pointed skywards in tribute.
BRAD MARCHAND OPENS THE SCORING!
And he immediately points to the sky ❤️ pic.twitter.com/WypXIhfFvO
— NHL (@NHL) November 1, 2025
“The hockey gods always come through,” Marchand said on the Panthers’ broadcast after the second period, in an interview that played in Amerant Arena. “It was a really, really tough week. That’s a special one to get for Selah.”
MVP candidates if the season ended today
Mark Scheifele, welcome to pole position in the Hart Trophy race. His 20 points lead the NHL, and his nine goals are one away from the league lead. The Winnipeg Jets are right in the mix atop the Central Division and Scheifele is a big reason why.
0:24
Mark Scheifele tallies goal vs. Blackhawks
Mark Scheifele tallies goal vs. Blackhawks
Golden Knights center Jack Eichel is down a notch this week, but remains in the race. He’s a point back of Scheifele in the race, leading the current Pacific Division leaders.
And speaking of Central Division powerhouses, Avs center Nathan MacKinnon is undeniable; he’s tied with Eichel with 19 points and is leading the league with 10 goals.
Social media posts of the weekend
It would have been a perfect omen had the Blue Jays pulled off the win Saturday night, but I still want to give love to Vlad Guerrero Jr. showing up to Game 7 of the World Series in a Team Canada Marie-Philip Poulin jersey. Known as “Captain Clutch,” Poulin has led Canada to three Olympic gold medals.
Vladimir Guerrero Jr. arrives for Game 7 in a Marie-Philip Poulin Team Canada jersey 🇨🇦 pic.twitter.com/HqRWmSSDhQ
— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) November 1, 2025
Also, to tie a bow on Frozen Frenzy from last week, here’s a look behind the scenes:
Frozen Frenzy BTS pic.twitter.com/GveKVm3hGr
— ᴀʀᴅᴀ Öᴄᴀʟ (@Arda) October 29, 2025
Stick taps
Former NWHL champion Tatiana Rafter has started a new podcast, “Good People In Hockey,” which has now released six episodes.
It’s a fun, upbeat slant on hockey talk, and is refreshing and welcomed in the sports space. Guests have been eclectic and interesting, including Courtney Mahoney, who has been with the AHL’s Chicago Wolves for over 30 years and is now their president of operations.
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