a Dodgers dynasty?
Is such a thing even possible anymore?
One of the favorite topics among sports pundits and fans during lull times is the of dynasties. What is a dynasty in sports? How many championships in how many years? There is no set definition, and teams like the Celtics of the 60s and the Yankees of the 40s are long gone.
Is a dynasty even possible any more, given the nature of free agency and how quickly a team can rise to dominance for a few years and that, poof, adios.
And of course I am looking at you, San Francisco Giants.
With the Dodgers not just winning the 2020 World Series but also the previous eight National League West titles, with two trips to the World Series and a loss in the NLCS, they have obviously been the most dominant team in the National League the past decade. Yes, the Giants won three World Series; I’d call them the most successful team of the past decade.
As much as I’d like to think of LA as a dynasty given the long run of dominance capped by this championship, and the likelihood of more winning to come — unless they are brutalized by injuries on a wrath-of-god scale, they are only going to continue to be very strong — the fact of a single World Series title undercuts that.
(With the massive, never-to-be-resolved asterisk of 2017. Who knows? If they had won that won, perhaps they’d have followed up in 2018. We’ll never know.)
Of course, if the Dodgers add a couple more titles over the next few years, it would be hard to deny them dynasty status. It wouldn’t be a mid-20th Century dynasty, of course; we’re unlikely to see that again. But if would cement this team as one of the best ever.
The Boston Red Sox, of course, had a massive run from 2004 to 2018. The New England Patriots were in the Super Bowl almost every year it seemed, winning a ridiculous number of them. The North Carolina Courage, I hate to say, have been the best team in NWSL over the past five years. The Golden State Warriors were ridiculously good and may continue to be so, if the injury issues are resolved.
Are any of those teams dynasties? Were the Jeter Yankees a dynasty? Kobe and Shaq’s Lakers?
I don’t know if simply winning three titles in a row suffices to be a dynasty. Four? A decade of championships and near-misses? If the Dodgers win three more in the next six years, are they then a dynasty?
None of this matters, of course. Right now, I’m content with my Dodgers as champions of this god-awful 2020 season. They were deemed to be the best team before a game was played, and they proved it on the field. That’s good enough for me. Next April, we have to do it all again. A repeat would be sweet, of course, especially if it could be at Dodgers Stadium; they’ve only clinched the title there once, in 1963.
If we win next year, then we get to serious dynasty talk. And it will matter just as little then.
