After 36 years, the Dodgers have a date for a World Series championship parade: It’s Friday.
The Dodgers last paraded with Los Angeles in 1988. The Dodgers won the World Series championship in 2020, but public health protections surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic prevented a parade then.
On Wednesday, the Dodgers completed defeated the New York Yankees 7-6, winning their second championship in five seasons. They will enjoy a parade this time, with none of the frustration of spending a month in a postseason bubble and without getting to share a celebration with their fans.
They will also enjoy shedding the criticism that the 2020 championship was somehow less legitimate, because the pandemic-shortened season lasted 60 games rather than 162.
“I think it kind of bugs everybody,” infielder Gavin Lux said Tuesday. “We were all in the same situation, and we still won that year. We were all in the same boat doing the same thing. I personally don’t think that’s the right narrative, but I think it kind of bugs everybody a little bit that you don’t get the recognition that you’re deserved.
“If anything, I think it was probably harder to win that year. You want the full season one, though, just to get that whole narrative out of the window.”
In 1988, the Dodgers paraded north along Broadway, toward a rally at City Hall. The city anticipated such a crush of fans there, The Times reported, that “workers painted big white numbers on the trees on the City Hall lawn so that officials could quickly be dispatched to the appropriate one in case fans fell to the ground.”
The Dodgers spoke from a podium, with the trophy on an adjacent table, for all the fans to see.
Manager Tommy Lasorda, dressed in a coat and tie, hollered to the masses: “Every game, when we came in the clubhouse, our theme was, ‘How sweet it is to taste the fruits of victory!’ ”
Lasorda demanded that Kirk Gibson, who hit the 1988 home run that lives forever, join him at the podium.
Bellowed Lasorda: “Give it to me! What is our theme at the end of each game? Say it one more time! Say it one more time!”
Gibson, dressed in a white Dodgers T-shirt, relented. He got up from his seat, ambled over to the microphone, and screamed: “How sweet it is! The fruits of victory!”
And then Lasorda danced.