A DIFFERENT FEEL FOR WORLD SERIES
Few fans, masked umps and muted celebrations at championship
ARLINGTON, TEXAS » A World Series like no other opens Tuesday night with Clayton Kershaw’s Los Angeles Dodgers pursuing redemption, Kevin Kiermaier’s Tampa Bay Rays seeking acclaim and Major League Baseball relieved just to reach the championship of the pandemic- delayed season.
Buzz figures to be dampened, with attendance down to about 11,000 in the smallest crowd for a Series game since roughly 1909.
The entire Series will be played on artificial turf for the first time since 1993, at new $1.2 billion Globe Life Field, home of a Texas Rangers teameliminated on Sept. 20. Traditional postgame victory celebrations are barred. But surroundings are largely irrelevant to the favored Dodgers and under-the-radar Rays.
Los Angeles, baseball’s biggest spender, is back in the Series for the third time in four years as it seeks its first title since 1988.
Plate umpire Laz Diaz will be masked — along with the rest of the crew.
“I don’t know if you watched Game 7 last night but it sure felt like postseason to me,” Dodgers third baseman Justin Turner said Monday, after theDodgers rallied to beat Atlanta 4-3 at Globe Life for the NL pennant. “The back and forth, the momentum shifts, big plays, big swings, big pitches,
that was as much of a playoff feel as I’ve ever experienced.”
Tampa Bay, among the major leagues’ poorest draws and lowest-salaried rosters, made it this far only once before and lost to Philadelphia in 2008. Perennially unable to get a new ballpark built, theRays have said they are exploring splitting future seasons between St. Petersburg, Florida, and Montreal.
While the Rays beat Houston for theALpennant on Saturday night in SanDiego, they had to wait until Monday to travel, allowing the Braves to vacate space in the Dallas at Las Colinas — Four Seasons, where the Dodgers have been bivouacked since before the Division Series started Oct. 6. Los Angeles had an optional early afternoonwork
out with the stadium roof closed, and the Rays had a full practice in the evening under autumn twilight.
“We’ll be able to get out there tonight, get a feel for the surroundings of the field and how the ball bounces,” Rays outfielder Austin Meadows said. “I’m excited for there tobe fans. It’s been a long time coming.”
The winner will give its city a 2-1 advantage in major U.S. sports league titles during the novel coronavirus pandemic following championships by theNHL’s Tampa Bay Lightning on Sept. 28 and the NBA’s Los Angeles Lakers on Oct. 11.
Both teams reflect imprint of Andrew Friedman, the Rays’ general manager from2005-14 and the Dodgers’president of baseballoperations since.
After regular-season attendance dropped from68.5 million to 0 and the first two rounds of an expanded postseason alsowere played without fans, Major League
Baseball sold about 28% capacity for theNLChampionship Series, which averaged 10,835 for the seven games at 40,518- capacity Globe Life Field. The Rays arrived in Dallas on Monday after playing the AL Division Series and AL Championship Series at empty Petco Park in San Diego.
Still, it was an accomplishment for MLB after a regular season in which 45 games were postponed for COVID-19-related reasons but just two were not made up. Rookie outfielder Randy Arozarena, the Cuban defector who led the Rays’ offense with seven homers in the playoffs, missed the first month of the shortened season after contracting COVID-19 and didn’t play his first game until Aug. 30.
Kershaw, a 32-year- old left-hander with three Cy Young Awards and an MVP trophy, is 175-76 in the regular season but 11-12 in the postseason, including 1-2 in the World Series. He has
been slowed this month by a reoccurrence of back spasms.
Tampa Bay starts Tyler Glasnow, a 27-year- old righty whose fastball averages 97.5 mph and who grew up in California admiring Kershaw. It will be the Rays’first game in front of fans since spring training was interrupted on March 12 and close to the end of a lengthy bubble existence.
This will be the first World Series entirely at one ballpark since 1944 between the Cardinals and Browns at Sportsman’s Park in St. Louis — and the fourth overall. The Yankees andGiants shared NewYork’s Polo Grounds in 1921 and 1922.
Los Angeles had a $95.6 millionpayroll onAug. 1, according to figures compiled by MLB. Tampa Bay was 28th at $28.9million, ahead of only Baltimore and Pittsburgh. The Rays eliminated the Yankees ($83.7 million) andHouston ($81.4million) during the AL playoffs.