No sport celebrates its historical past higher than baseball, so in terms of rivalries, the contests between the Yankees and Dodgers over the previous 85 years have introduced with them the joy, suspense, thrills and depth that followers of the nationwide pastime have come to count on.
A real rivalry isn’t born; it’s created organically. Within the case of the Yanks and Dodgers, it started when the 2 franchises occupied disparate boroughs of New York Metropolis. They’ve clashed for baseball supremacy a dozen instances — 1941, 1947, 1949, 1952, 1953, 1955, 1956, 1963, 1977, 1978, 1981 and 2024 — 5 greater than another matchup in World Sequence historical past, and their October battles have supplied a few of the best drama within the colourful historical past of the sport.
Over the 10-year interval from 1947 to ’56, their six Subway Sequence showdowns had been epic struggles, with 4 going the total seven video games. In September 1955, The Sporting Information referred to this as “the final phrase in baseball vendetta, a rivalry past which there might be nothing extra vehement.”
Very similar to within the golden days of Hollywood, when film studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer claimed as its motto “extra stars than there are in heaven,” the large names hooked up to the Yankees-Dodgers rivalry have included a few of the brightest lights within the sport. Legends equivalent to Mickey Mantle, Sandy Koufax, Yogi Berra, Joe DiMaggio, Jackie Robinson, Reggie Jackson, Shohei Ohtani and Aaron Choose — in addition to lesser recognized however hardly forgotten names like Al Gionfriddo, Johnny Podres, Mickey Owen, Don Larsen, Sandy Amoros, Tommy Henrich, Cookie Lavagetto and Invoice Bevens — all performed a job in placing this storied matchup on everybody’s radar.
When the rivalry began in 1941, the Yankees had been a dynasty, defeating Brooklyn in 5 video games for his or her fifth World Sequence title in six years. Afterward, their supervisor, Joe McCarthy, foreshadowed what was forward.
“You understand, baseball is a romance,” Marse Joe philosophized. “You possibly can’t purchase this with cash. You need to really feel one thing inside you to understand the world championship the best way we do. Baseball is my life. I like it. I might need to be in it if I didn’t make a dime. It’s a grand sport and generally the spirit of it overwhelms you.
“I’m very completely happy to be the supervisor of an amazing ballclub. The Yankees are a sport membership, and I believe we beat , sport membership.”
As of 2026, the 2 franchises have performed a complete of 71 World Sequence video games in opposition to one another, with the Yankees holding a 38-33 benefit. Because the introduction of Interleague Play in 1997, the Dodgers maintain a 13-12 regular-season benefit over the Yankees previous to 2026, when New York will host Los Angeles for a three-game sequence July 17-19. What follows are a few of the most memorable clashes and storylines between the Yankees and Dodgers through the years.
‘A Nickel’s Value of Canine Meat’
With two outs within the prime of the ninth inning in Recreation 4 of the 1941 World Sequence, the Dodgers had been poised to beat the Yankees and tie it at two wins apiece. Trailing, 4-3, the Yankees had been all the way down to their final strike, and with Tommy Henrich on the plate, Hugh Casey threw a nasty curveball that fooled Henrich, who swung and missed for strike three, ending the sport.
However wait! Dodgers catcher Mickey Owen let the ball get previous him, and Henrich raced to first base, reaching safely. The play unglued the Dodgers, who then allowed 4 runs within the inning and misplaced, 7-4. The following day, Brooklyn misplaced Recreation 5, 3-1, and the primary Yankees-Dodgers World Sequence was over.
“It was all my fault,” Owen lamented afterward. “It wasn’t a strike. It was an amazing breaking curve that I ought to have had. However I assume the ball hit the facet of my glove. It acquired away from me, and by the point I acquired maintain of it close to the nook of the Brooklyn dugout, I couldn’t have thrown anyone out at first.
“It isn’t being the ‘goat’ that bothers me, although. That doesn’t fear me within the least. What I’m actually damaged up about is the opposite boys on our membership who did so properly and positively deserved to win.”
Even Henrich felt a bit sorry for Owen: “That was a troublesome break for poor previous Mickey to get. I wager he looks like a nickel’s value of canine meat.”
“In poker,” stated Dodgers president Larry MacPhail, “there’s a saying whenever you attempt to do one thing the arduous means, like filling an inside straight, that you simply’re ‘making an attempt to catch lightning in a bottle.’ Effectively, the Yanks had the luck. They caught the lightning within the bottle.”
On a maybe happier observe, Owen stated that his suspicions that he could be persona non grata for Dodgers followers proved incorrect. “I acquired about 4,000 wires and letters,” he informed The Saturday Night Put up on the twenty fifth anniversary of the handed ball. “I had affords of jobs and proposals of marriage. Some ladies despatched their photos in bathing fits, and my spouse tore them up.”
Yankees right-hander Invoice Bevens began Recreation 4 of the 1947 World Sequence, and regardless of strolling 10 batters, he had held Brooklyn hitless and led, 2-1, by 8 2/3 innings. However then Cookie Lavagetto’s pinch-hit double off the right-field wall at Ebbets Subject within the backside of the ninth broke up the no-hitter and ended the sport by driving in two runs.
“It wasn’t even a strike that man hit,” Bevens stated after the sport. “It was excessive and away from Lavagetto. I threw a fastball, nevertheless it wasn’t even within the strike zone. I used to be simply wild, that’s all. I ought to have gotten beat with all these walks. Not solely that, however that ball Lavagetto hit would have gone into the seats within the Stadium, anyway. It will have been a homer.
“What the heck, I misplaced the ballgame, didn’t I? They had been hitting my fastball fairly far within the eighth and ninth. Considered one of them was certain to go up there for a success.”
In Recreation 1 of the 1949 Fall Traditional — a Sequence the Yankees would go on to win in 5 video games — Tommy Henrich hit the primary walk-off dwelling run in postseason historical past, offering a dramatic finish to a tense, scoreless pitching duel. His ninth-inning homer off Dodgers starter Don Newcombe capped a 1-0 triumph.
“Heck, I don’t even know what I hit. I used to be simply trying on the ball, and it seemed fairly good to me,” Henrich stated after the sport. “All I do know is I hit it, and I do know I really feel mighty good. Gosh.
“I by no means noticed a World Sequence sport that had the pitchers a lot in cost. The gamers on our bench all had been saying that Newcombe gave them only a few good ones to hit. He actually was the boss, and so was [Allie] Reynolds.”
Newcombe was extra succinct afterwards: “It was a low curveball. It was pitch, he simply hit it, that’s all.”
A 36-year-old veteran who would spend his whole 11-season profession with the Bronx Bombers, Henrich had acquired the nickname “Previous Dependable” for simply such events. Within the closing sport of the 1949 season, he homered at Yankee Stadium within the Yankees’ pennant-winning victory over the Boston Crimson Sox.
“Tommy was the steadiest ballplayer I’ve ever seen as a result of he’s smarter than the common participant,” longtime teammate Joe DiMaggio stated upon Henrich’s retirement following the 1950 marketing campaign. “He’s a person who took benefit of all the pieces he noticed.”
In a 1949 profile of Henrich in The New Yorker, Yankees supervisor Casey Stengel stated, “He’s a fantastic choose of a fly ball. He fields grounders like an infielder. He by no means makes a fallacious throw, and if he comes again to the resort at 3 within the morning after we’re on the highway and says he’s been sitting up with a sick buddy, he’s been sitting up with a sick buddy.”
In 1955, the acquainted chorus from Brooklyn Dodgers followers, “Wait ’til subsequent yr,” could possibly be put to mattress: “Dem Bums” lastly gained all of it. And who ought to Brooklyn — in existence because the Eighteen Nineties and not using a title — defeat within the World Sequence however their crosstown rivals who had introduced them a lot heartache through the years.
Sandy Amoros performed a pivotal position for the Dodgers in Recreation 7. It was the underside of the sixth inning, and Brooklyn held a 2-0 lead when Amoros, a defensive alternative in left discipline, caught a Yogi Berra drive close to the road and assisted in doubling Gil McDougald off first base.
However in Recreation 1, Brooklyn’s Jackie Robinson pulled off the last word thrill by stealing dwelling — a second immortalized in World Sequence lore.
With two outs within the prime of the eighth inning and the Yankees main by two runs, Robinson broke from third in opposition to left-hander Whitey Ford. The “Chairman of the Board” threw dwelling, the place Berra was prepared to put the tag on Robinson. The speedy second baseman slid in ft first and was shortly known as protected by home-plate umpire Invoice Summers. Berra was incensed. Though the Yankees gained that sport, 6-5, Berra endlessly maintained that Robinson was out.
“Right here’s the way it occurred,” Robinson stated within the clubhouse afterward. “Ford wasn’t giving me an excessive amount of of a glance. I suppose he figured I wouldn’t do it, being two runs behind. A steal of dwelling like that within the eighth is often not play. I used to be protected — little doubt in my thoughts in any respect. I might see the plate once I slid in. Yogi was again of the plate. I suppose Yogi figured he had me or he wouldn’t have raised such a fuss. In my view, it wasn’t shut. In all probability in Yogi’s it was.”
Ford had a barely totally different take: “I had my eye on him from the beginning. Frankly, I didn’t suppose he’d strive it together with his crew two runs behind. However as soon as he began, I took my time and threw a low quick one in what I assumed was loads of time. I believe we acquired him.”
Berra, as was the case all through the remainder of his lengthy life, claimed after the sport, “It was an in depth play, however I had him straightforward.
“I went out to Whitey. I reminded him Brooklyn was two runs behind, and I stated I didn’t suppose Robinson would attempt to steal dwelling when he acquired to 3rd base. Positive, we had been stunned. It was a dumb play together with his crew two runs behind, nevertheless it labored, and so it was one.”
‘The imperfect man pitched an ideal sport’
In a single closing matchup between the 2 rivals earlier than the Brooklyn Dodgers moved to Los Angeles after the 1957 season, the Yankees used the momentum of a pitching masterpiece to seize one more World Sequence title. On Oct. 8, 1956, Don Larsen carved his identify into the American sports activities panorama by pitching the primary good sport in postseason historical past.
“I used to be so weak within the knees on the market within the ninth inning, I assumed I used to be going to faint,” Larsen stated after his 97-pitch Recreation 5 gem. “I didn’t get nervous — my important object was to win the sport. The factor I wished to do was get out of the ninth inning. As soon as I mumbled a bit of prayer to myself. I stated, ‘Please assist me by this.’
“The one phrase stated to me was by Yogi Berra. Yogi hit me on the seat of the pants and stated, ‘Go on the market, and let’s get the primary batter.’ I used to be pitching fastballs and sliders principally, however primarily, I had good management. I solely shook off a few Yogi’s indicators, however he caught with them, so I went forward and pitched what he known as. I’m glad of it.”
The Washington Put up’s Shirley Povich crafted a memorable lede within the subsequent day’s newspaper: “The million-to-one shot got here in. Hell froze over. A month of Sundays hit the calendar. Don Larsen at this time pitched a no-hit, no-run, no-man-reach-first sport in a World Sequence.”
Larsen was trying to bounce again from a horrible effort in Recreation 2, wherein he had allowed 4 runs on one hit and 4 walks in 1 2/3 innings. In the course of the good sport, he went to a three-ball rely simply as soon as and effortlessly zipped by a Dodgers lineup that featured future Corridor of Famers Pee Wee Reese, Gil Hodges, Duke Snider, Jackie Robinson and Roy Campanella.
Within the prime of the ninth, Larsen retired Carl Furillo on a fly ball to proper and acquired Campanella to floor out to second. Dodgers supervisor Walter Alston then despatched up pinch-hitter Dale Mitchell, who took a known as third strike to finish the sport. After retiring Mitchell, Larsen walked off the mound and, in a reversal of roles, caught Berra leaping into his arms.
“The imperfect man pitched an ideal sport yesterday,” Joe Trimble wrote within the New York Every day Information. “Don Larsen, a free soul who loves the homosexual life, retired all 27 Dodgers within the basic pitching efficiency of all time because the Yankees gained the fifth sport, 2-0, on the Stadium and took a 3-2 edge within the set.”
Reggie Jackson endlessly earned his well-known nickname when, on baseball’s greatest stage, “Mr. October” slugged three homers in a deciding World Sequence sport practically 50 years in the past.
The sixth sport of the 1977 Fall Traditional passed off at Yankee Stadium on Oct. 18. Simply 9 days after Jackson had been benched within the deciding fifth sport of the ALCS in opposition to the Royals, what baseball followers had been about to witness left even essentially the most strident critics of one of many sport’s most polarizing stars in awe. The lefty-swinging Jackson, batting cleanup and coming off a tumultuous first common season as a member of the Yankees, swatted homers on the primary pitch to him from three totally different Dodgers right-handers within the fourth, fifth and eighth innings.
“Nothing can prime this,” stated the 31-year-old proper fielder after his historic sport in “The Home That Ruth Constructed” helped the Yankees declare their twenty first World Sequence title in 31 appearances. “Who in hell’s ever going to hit three dwelling runs in a deciding World Sequence sport? I gained’t.”
Yankees president Gabe Paul, a person intimately concerned in signing Jackson to a five-year, $2.9 million free-agent contract in November 1976, defined, “The distinction between a fantastic participant and an amazing one is his skill to rise. Nice gamers rise. And tonight, Reggie Jackson confirmed he was an amazing participant.”
Jackson, in an unprecedented show of energy, hit a two-run round-tripper off a Burt Hooton fastball within the fourth inning into the right-field seats, one other two-run shot in opposition to an Elias Sosa fastball within the fifth body into the right-field seats, and a solo homer off knuckleballer Charlie Hough main off the eighth, a tape-measure shot far past the center-field fence that was estimated in information stories to have flown between 450 and 500 ft. The monstrous blast introduced with it raucous cheers from the gang of “REG-GIE! REG-GIE! REG-GIE!”
“The final consensus on find out how to pitch to me is difficult and in,” Jackson stated. “On the primary one, I knew Hooton would pitch me there, however I had an inkling I’d hit one. As quickly as they introduced in Sosa, I acquired on the cellphone to Stick [Yankees scout Gene Michael] upstairs and requested him about Sosa as a result of Sosa popped me up with a fastball in Spring Coaching. Stick informed me he throws arduous stuff — fastball, slider, good curve. I hit one other fastball. I hit the second even higher than I hit the third, the one off Hough’s knuckler. Brooks Robinson taught me find out how to hit a knuckler: simply time the ball.”
“That was the best efficiency that I’ve ever seen in a World Sequence,” stated Dodgers supervisor Tommy Lasorda. “Would I’ve accomplished something totally different? I wouldn’t have gotten up this morning.”
Previous to Jackson, the one different participant to homer thrice in a World Sequence sport was Babe Ruth, who did it twice, within the fourth sport of the 1926 Sequence and once more within the Recreation 4 clincher of the 1928 Sequence, each coming in St. Louis in opposition to the Cardinals.
“I’m no Babe Ruth. Let’s face it. Ruth was nice. I used to be simply fortunate,” stated Jackson. “Proper now, I simply really feel jubilation, reduction, pleasure and pleasure. This was my best sport as a Yankee.”
Since Jackson, the one different gamers to hit three homers in a single World Sequence sport are the Cardinals’ Albert Pujols in opposition to the Rangers in 2011 (Recreation 3) and the Giants’ Pablo Sandoval in opposition to the Tigers in 2012 (Recreation 1).
On Could 30, 2025, within the first sport competing in opposition to one another because the earlier yr’s World Sequence, Aaron Choose of the Yankees and Shohei Ohtani of the Dodgers placed on a present for the 53,276 followers at Dodger Stadium. The pair made historical past by turning into the primary reigning Most Invaluable Gamers to homer in the identical inning — each going deep within the opening body of Los Angeles’ 8-5 victory.
“I really feel like he was copying me,” Choose stated with a smile. “He’s spectacular. He’s among the best gamers within the sport for a purpose. What he can do within the field, on the basepaths, as soon as he will get again on the mound — it’s particular. I like taking part in in opposition to the perfect. You need to play in opposition to the perfect groups, the perfect gamers. Ohtani is unquestionably among the best gamers within the sport, and he has been for a very long time.
“I like taking part in on the West Coast. I like taking part in in huge video games like this. It’s at all times enjoyable.”
Choose’s shot to deep middle discipline was his nineteenth of the season; Ohtani’s to deep left-center his twenty first (he’d homer once more within the sixth). Each would seize one other MVP Award later that yr.
“I believe each groups began on a extremely good observe,” Ohtani stated by interpreter Will Ireton. “I actually thought it was necessary to have the ability to rating one other run in that scenario, understanding that momentum is actually necessary in a sport like at this time.
“We attempt to win every sport, after all, however I believe it’s a particular ambiance [against the Yankees].”
The opposing skippers had been amazed by what they noticed.
“We love superstars,” Dodgers supervisor Dave Roberts stated, “and to begin the sport off with Choose hitting a homer and Shohei answering within the backside half was fairly thrilling for everybody. [Ohtani] would in all probability say it’s similar to another sport, however I do suppose that whenever you see the reigning MVP on the opposite facet, and going on the market and performing, that brings out much more of a competitor in Shohei. And clearly, it introduced up a variety of pleasure from the followers.”
Mentioned Yankees supervisor Aaron Boone: “They had been sort of related dwelling runs … proper out of the gate, a few huge haymakers. You actually marvel at a few of the gamers on this discipline tonight. There’s plenty of MVPs and All-Stars, nice gamers. A few of the stars actually confirmed tonight.”
Invoice Francis is a contributing author for Yankees Journal. This story seems within the July 2026 version. Get extra articles like this delivered to the doorstep by buying a subscription to Yankees Journal at www.yankees.com/publications.
