Should the Series always be played on neutral field?

The Los Angeles Dodgers and the Tampa Bay Rays gathered at Globe Life Field Tuesday for the first game of the World Series, the 116th in history and the first at a neutral site. The Dodgers were the home team, more than 1,200 miles from their home.

“I’m sad that it didn’t happen at Dodger Stadium because this game would have been at Dodger Stadium,” infielder Enrique Hernandez said after clinching the pennant in Game 7 of the National League Championship Series here on Sunday. “But the feeling is kind of still the same: We’re still going to the World Series.”

In football, of course, the Super Bowl is always held at a neutral site; 10 years ago, it was right next door at the Dallas Cowboys’ stadium. The World Series is here only because of the coronavirus pandemic — but if Scott Boras had his wish, this would be the start of a new tradition.

Boras, the most prominent agent in baseball, has called for a neutral-site World Series for at least a decade, once making the proposal in a letter to Bud Selig, the former commissioner. Selig replied politely, Boras said, but the idea went nowhere.

“Of course, the big bugaboo was that it means so much to the local entities to have the World Series in their town,” Boras said in an interview on Monday. “And I said, ‘Yeah, but the detriment it’s causing the game — it’s like serving soup in your hand. I get that it’s soup, but your product is going to waste by doing it.”

Soup belongs in a bowl, as it happens, and in Boras’ vision, the Super Bowl should be a model for Major League Baseball.

“We have to be forwardthinking about how we create a game that has attention above all other sports,” he said. “It’s already given us an indication of what the current, traditional approach has provided, and that is that baseball does not receive the attention of the Super Bowl. Well, let’s create a product that does receive the attention of the Super Bowl, and let’s create something that allows for a World Series week and brings commerce and corporate interaction and all those things that come to a city for the Super Bowl — but we can actually deliver four to seven games as opposed to one.”

For the first time since 2013, the World Series does feature the two teams with the best record from each league.