New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
Rays and Dodgers have title in sights
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 pandemicdelayed 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 team eliminated on Sept. 20. Traditional postgame victory celebrations are barred. But surroundings are largely irrelevant to the favored Dodgers and underthe-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 the Dodgers 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, the Rays have said they are exploring splitting future seasons between St. Petersburg, Florida, and Montreal.
While the Rays beat Houston for the AL pennant on Saturday