Dodgers go for first World Series title at home in 62 years

The 2025 World Series offers the Los Angeles Dodgers a special, 62-year-old reward: lifting the title in front of their home crowd.

Since the Los Angeles Dodgers began playing at Dodger Stadium in 1962, they have played in 12 World Series, but only once did they manage to win the trophy in front of their fans. That was in 1963, when they swept the New York Yankees (4-0).

The first two games were played in New York, but the final two were at Dodger Stadium before a crowd of more than 110,000 fans.

Since then, the Dodgers have won World Series titles in 1965, 1981, 1988, 2020, and 2024, but have yet to win them again at home. The 2025 edition gives them that chance for revenge against the Toronto Blue Jays.

The first games of the series were played in Toronto (Rogers Centre). The Blue Jays won 11-4 in Game 1, and the Dodgers tied the series with a 5-1 victory in Game 2.

This guaranteed that the 2025 World Series would be extended to at least five games. It also confirmed that Dodger Stadium would host Games 3, 4, and 5; if it goes to Games 6 and 7, the battle would have to return to Canadian territory.

That means between Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, the Dodgers have a chance to break their 62-year streak without celebrating a World Series title at home. They need to win Games 3, 4, and 5 against the Blue Jays to confirm it.

This is the twelfth time in Major League Baseball (MLB) history that Dodger Stadium has hosted the World Series. The previous times were in 1963, 1965, 1966, 1974, 1977, 1978, 1981, 1988, 2017, and 2024.

The Dodgers played in 10 other World Series games between 1916 and 1959, but their home games were between Brooklyn's old Ebbets Field and the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, resulting in just two titles and eight losses.

The losing record didn't change with the move to Dodger Stadium either. In the 11 World Series the Dodgers have played there, between 1963 and 2024, they won five times (1963, 1965, 1981, 1988, and 2024), losing the remaining six (1966, 1974, 1977, 1978, 2017, and 2018).

It should be noted that the Dodgers were champions of the 2020 World Series against the Tampa Bay Rays (4-2), but the COVID-19 pandemic caused the games to be played in a health bubble at Globe Life Field in Texas (home of the Rangers).

In total, the Dodgers have played 29 World Series games at Dodger Stadium. The three already confirmed against the Blue Jays in 2025 will increase the total to 32.

Should Shohei Ohtani and company's team secure a home victory, it would tie their all-time World Series win-loss record since moving to Dodger Stadium at 6-6; it would be 7-6 if the 2020 Fall Classic is considered, although that one was played in the Texas bubble.

Overall, the Dodgers are chasing their ninth World Series title in history to tie the Oakland Athletics and Boston Red Sox for third place in the all-time record, staying behind the St. Louis Cardinals (11) and New York Yankees (27).

The Toronto Blue Jays, meanwhile, hope to survive three consecutive visits to Dodger Stadium this week to aspire to win their third World Series title in history, following those achieved in 1992 (against the Atlanta Braves) and 1993 (against the Philadelphia Phillies).

Tyler Glasnow will start for the Dodgers on Monday, following Blake Snell in Game 1 and Yoshinobu Yamamoto in Game 2.

The Japanese pitcher, in fact, pitched the first complete game in a World Series in a decade, the last having been Dominican Johnny Cueto with the Kansas City Royals in 2015.

For the Blue Jays, the starter for Game 3 of the 2025 World Series will be the experienced 41-year-old Max Scherzer, who already knows what it's like to win a title, having done so in 2019 with the Washington Nationals and in 2023 with the Texas Rangers.