Dodgers a new kind of special in 2017

These aren’t your 1988 Dodgers, not even close.

Justin Turner was a three-year-old then, wondering what all the fuss was about when watching Kirk Gibson’s home run on TV at his grandmother’s home in Southern California. Clayton Kershaw wasn’t even walking yet, much less tinkering with the curve ball Vin Scully called Public Enemy No. 1 the first time he saw it.

This is not 1988 baseball either, which is the biggest reason the Los Angeles Dodgers are in the World Series for the first time in 29 years.

There’s a lot to celebrate for a franchise that hasn’t had much to celebrate over the last three decades.

The Dodgers used a heavy emphasis on analytics and a cutting edge approach to how players play and how pitchers pitch to finally get over the hump.

About the only bittersweet moment is that Scully — who retired last season — will not be in the booth above home plate at Dodger Stadium calling the game Tuesday night.

At least he’s not scheduled to be, though wouldn’t it be great to ask the 89-year-old to sit in for, say, an inning for old time’s sake?

In case you’ve forgotten or were too young, this was how Scully described Gibson’s iconic home run to win Game 1 in 1988.

“She is gone!” Scully said before pausing for a minute or so to let the roaring crowd tell the story. “In a year that has been so improbable, the impossible has happened.”

The Dodgers of 2017 didn’t need much in the way of the dramatic to get in this World Series, though Turner provided some in Game 2 with a walk off home run. The clinching game was such a lopsided blowout that it was pretty much decided in the third inning when Enrique Hernandez hit the second of his three home runs, a grand slam that put the Dodgers up 7-0 on their way to an 11-1 win.

Credit that to a building process and some astute late pickups by Andrew Friedman, president of baseball operations, and general manager Farhan Zaidi that re-defined what a roster should look like.

“These guys are reinventing the game,” said Hershiser, who won two games in the 1988 World Series and now works for the Dodgers as a broadcaster. “They understand game theory and how to construct a roster and play it on a daily basis. They figured out how to give a team its best chance to win through October.”