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Game one of the 2024 World Series resulted in a monumental win for the Los Angeles Dodgers, thanks to one of the most incredible home runs in World Series history. Freddie Freeman, with two outs and the bases loaded in the bottom of the 10th inning, hit a walk-off grand slam against Nestor Cortes and the New York Yankees.

READ: Freddie Freeman Ends Yankees-Dodgers World Series Game One With Incredible Walk-Off Grand Slam

It was a spectacular, jaw-dropping finish to a tightly contested game one. In the aftermath though, much of the discussion centered on how it made the Dodgers favorites to win their first full season World Series title since 1988.

But uh, what about 2020?

The Dodgers won a championship in 2020, beating the Tampa Bay Rays four games to two after finishing the 60-game season with the best record in baseball. In the ensuing years, rival fans have dismissed it as a “Mickey Mouse ring” or something equally childish. But that ignores how baseball fans think about the season compared to the playoffs, and how those same fans thought and felt about the 2020 postseason as it happened.

Mookie Betts Dodgers World Series

Los Angeles Dodgers Mookie Betts celebrates against the Tampa Bay Rays at Globe Life Field in 2020. (Photo by Erick W. Rasco/Sports Illustrated via Getty Images) (X163428)

2020 World Series Discussion Is Revisionist History

The argument made by rival fans is that 2020 doesn’t count because the regular season was shortened by (pointless) pandemic lockdowns. Except those same fans also say that the regular season effectively doesn’t matter, the only accomplishment worth celebrating is winning the World Series.

Winning the World Series in the modern era though, is an exercise in randomness. In the decades of Yankees dominance, most of their titles came in an era quite literally without playoffs. The team with the best record in the American League played the team with the best record in the National League in the World Series.

It’s a lot easier to win when there’s no tournament. 

But that’s not the era we live in today. In search of more revenue, Major League Baseball has continually expanded the postseason field. Even the “best” teams now have to win two consecutive series to advance, including a division round against a team that’s already carrying momentum from a wild card win.

So which is it? Does the regular season matter? Or not? Is the only way to get “credit” from fans to advance through a tournament of coin flip games and win the World Series, or does dominating a 162-game regular season count for just as much, or more? 

Because if so, the Dodgers should be labeled one of the most successful dynasties in baseball history.

Los Angeles has won 100 games or more five times in the last seven full seasons. They’ve won their division 11 times in 12 seasons, the one miss being a 106-win season in 2021. None of that matters though, we’re continuously told, because the Dodgers have “choked” in the playoffs.

Except they didn’t in 2020. But out of jealousy and frustration, fans hypocritically discard that success. The tournament is the only thing that matters, except when it doesn’t.

And make no mistake, dismissing the 2020 title is hypocritical. 

San DIego Padres fans threw a massive celebration in downtown San Diego after the Padres won the wild card series in 2020. Apparently, they didn’t view that wild card round as a “Mickey Mouse” playoff series.

The Atlanta Braves were visibly devastated after blowing a 3-1 series lead over the Dodgers in the NLCS. 

But the revisionist history would now say that those Braves players were putting on an elaborate act, that they didn’t actually care about winning, because it would have been a “Mickey Mouse” World Series anyway.

Every team’s fans wanted to win in 2020, because of course they did. Had the Rays won, or the Braves, or the Padres, those organizations would hang a banner, give out rings, celebrate with highlight packages and commemorative merchandise. 

But because rival fans enjoy their nonsensical “Dodgers are postseason chokers” narratives, they’ve created an alternative history to justify the jealousy. No matter what happens in the rest of the 2024 series, there should be no “first full season World Series” labels. The regular season doesn’t matter, only the tournament does. The 2020 Dodgers won the tournament.