The Brief

It’s time for World Series Dodger baseball! Yes, the Dodgers are back in the Fall Classic and the matchup is a rivalry as old as time itself. East versus West. The Big Apple versus the City of Angels. Subway versus freeway. Chopped cheese versus street tacos. You get the idea…it’s the New York Yankees versus YOUR Los Angeles Dodgers. And Game 1 is tonight, right here in Los Angeles.

If you’re just tuning in to this year’s MLB season and want to familiarize yourself with the competitors and the storylines so you’re in the know when watching with family, friends or fellow Dodger fans at your local watering hole, you’ve come to the right place! This guide will help catch you up on how the Dodgers got here, and what they need to do to win it all.

Who plays in the World Series?

Also known as the Fall Classic, the World Series is a best-of-seven series between the champions of Major League’s Baseball’s two leagues — the American League and the National League. The first team to win four games will be crowned champions of baseball.

Win a bar bet: The MLB’s top prize is called the Commissioner’s Trophy — this circular job in the middle with all the flags.

So, who gets home field advantage? In baseball, it’s decided by the team with the highest winning percentage. This year, that’s the Dodgers. Their 98-64 record was the best in baseball this year, earning them a .605 winning percentage (i.e. they won 60.5% of the games they played). This means that should the series go the full seven games, the Dodgers will get to play four of those games in L.A.

When are the games?

All games will be broadcast on Fox and Fox Deportes. The times here are all for the West Coast, and remember it's the best of seven so the series could be as short as four games if one team sweeps.

• Game 1: Friday, Oct. 25 at 5:08 p.m. at Dodger Stadium
• Game 2: Saturday, Oct. 26 at 5:08 p.m.. at Dodger Stadium
• Game 3: Monday, Oct. 28 at 5:08 p.m. at Yankee Stadium
• Game 4: Tuesday, Oct. 29 at 5:08 p.m. at Yankee Stadium
• Game 5 (if necessary): Wednesday, Oct. 30 at 5:08 p.m. at Yankee Stadium
• Game 6 (if necessary): Friday, Nov. 1 at 5:08 p.m. at Dodger Stadium
• Game 7 (if necessary): Saturday, Nov. 2 at 5:08 p.m. at Dodger Stadium

How the Dodgers got here and what’s on the line

The Dodgers had the best record in the National League, meaning they skipped the first playoff round. They then beat division rival San Diego Padres in the National League Division Series (NLDS). (That was a revenge series — the Padres bounced them out of the playoffs in 2022.)

The Dodgers then knocked off the upstart New York Mets in six games in the National League Championship Series (NLCS), punching their ticket to the Fall Classic.

Win a bar bet: If the Dodgers win, it will be their eighth World Series title, tying them with the rival San Francisco Giants for fifth most of any team.

Their opponent: The Yankees had the best record in the American League this year. They, too, got a bye in the Wildcard Round before cruising past the Kansas City Royals in the American League Division Series (ALDS) and then toppling the Cleveland Guardians in the American League Championship Series (ALCS).

If the Yankees win, it will be their 28th World Series title — the most of any team in baseball — and their first since 2009.

Key storylines

Proving the doubters wrong: The last time the Dodgers missed the playoffs, it was October 2012. President Barack Obama was running for reelection, the iPhone 5 had just been released and Korean rapper Psy was peaking on the pop charts with his viral hit song “Gangnam Style.” The Dodgers have been among the best teams in baseball and have made the playoffs in each of the 12 years since, including four trips to the World Series (counting this year) — but have only one championship to show for it. A win this year would go a long way in proving that the Dodgers are more than just a great regular season team, and that they can win when it matters most.

Winning it for Fernando: Following the death of iconic Dodgers pitcher Fernando Valenzuela earlier this week, Los Angeles now has an extra incentive to motivate them -- winning it all in honor of the late legend.

Winning it “for real”: The Dodgers won the World Series in 2020, but it was during a COVID-shortened season. Teams played just 60 games, compared to the usual 162, in empty ballparks. Now, a championship is a championship in our eyes, but that hasn’t stopped sports talking heads and fans of other teams from suggesting that the 2020 title means less because the season was shortened. Winning a World Series in a full season would silence those critics.

Refreshing a rivalry: On the surface, you wouldn’t really call the Dodgers and Yankees “bitter rivals.” The Dodgers’ most-hated rivals are the San Francisco Giants, and the Yankees’ are the Boston Red Sox. But there’s actually a lot of history to this matchup because — like all the new good bagel places in town, the Dodgers are a New York import. They used to be the Brooklyn Dodgers, until moving here in 1957, and they were the Yankees’ crosstown rivals. And this year is the 12th World Series matchup between the Dodgers and Yankees, the most in MLB history. The Yankees do have the historical edge in the matchup, winning eight of the previous 11 World Series matchups between the teams.

Superstars collide: Dodgers’ designated hitter Shohei Ohtani and Yankees outfielder Aaron Judge are arguably the two best players in baseball. Both have won MVP awards (and will likely each win another this year), both are coming off 50+ home run seasons and both are seeking their first World Series. Surprisingly, it’s rare to see this much star power in a World Series — it’s the first time ever that two players who hit 50+ home runs in a season face off in the World Series.

Dodgers players to watch

Shohei Ohtani, designated hitter

The phenom. The $700 million man. The Sho. Shotime. We’ve never seen a baseball player quite like Shohei Ohtani. He is a once-in-a-generation player who can hit, run and even pitch, though that part of his game has been shut down this year as he recovers from elbow surgery he had in 2023 (you’re welcome, New York). He's the Dodgers' designated hitter, meaning he bats in the lineup but does not play a defensive position in the field. This year, he became the first player EVER to record a 50 home run, 50 stolen base season.

If the Dodgers are going to win the World Series, they’re going to need him to replicate his offensive performance from the regular season. That could be complicated by the fact that Ohtani is nursing an injury. He suffered a subluxation (partial dislocation) of his shoulder as he slid into second base during a steal attempt in Game 2, but he is in the starting lineup for Game 3 so it appears he'll try to play through it.

Mookie Betts, right field

Since arriving in L.A. in 2020 from the Boston Red Sox, Markus Lynn “Mookie” Betts has been the heart and soul of the Dodgers lineup. He’s also a generational baseball talent:

Mookie has played outfield most of his career in the big leagues, and has anchored the Dodgers outfield so far in the World Series, but the last two years he’s been called on to play in the infield to help his team fill defensive gaps. He’s the kind of selfless team player you can’t help but root for, and he also brings World Series experience to the team — he won rings in 2018 with the Red Sox and 2020 with the Dodgers. And if that wasn’t enough to make you a fan, get this: he’s made the World Series in both baseball … and bowling. Here he is bowling a perfect 300 game in the 2017 World Series of Bowling:

Freddie Freeman, first base

Together with Shohei and Mookie, Freddie Freeman completes the “Big 3” in the Dodgers lineup.

He missed a couple games due to injury in the NLCS, but has played every game of the World Series so far and has been the biggest offensive contributor. Freeman has homered in each World Series game so far, including a game-winning, walk-off grand slam in Game 1. His homer in Game 4 makes SIX straight World Series games (dating back to his time with the Atlanta Braves when they won it all in 2021) where he's gone yard, which is an MLB record:

Standing 6-foot-5, Freddie’s an imposing figure when he steps up to the plate. But don’t let his towering stature fool you — he's got a million dollar smile and fellow players will tell you he’s one of the nicest guys in the league. Don’t believe me? Here’s Freddie reading nice tweets about himself:

How many people have nice things said about them on X these days? Freddie does.

Tommy Edman, shortstop & center field

Even though he joined the team in the middle of the season after being traded from the St. Louis Cardinals, this dual-threat has been a huge factor in the Dodgers’ postseason success. He’s an excellent defensive player who plays both shortstop and center field, which are considered the “captain” positions of the infield and outfield, respectively. His defining moment came in Game 6 of the Championship Series when he hit a two-run home run to give the Dodgers a 4-1 lead:

Edman also has local roots — he grew up in La Jolla and his mom is from Los Angeles.

Maureen Edman, Tommy Edman's mom, kisses him on the cheek after the Dodgers defeated the New York Mets to advance to the World Series.

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Kiké Hernández, utility

If you’re going to win a World Series, you need a Kiké on your team. Enrique “Kiké” Hernández isn’t a superstar like Mookie Betts or Shohei Ohtani. During the regular season, his stats are nothing to write home about. But during the playoffs? He’s got that dog in him. He's a utility player, meaning he can play pretty much any position on the field. So far this postseason he’s hit a couple of huge home runs for the Dodgers, including this home run in the decisive Game 5 of the Division Series that helped propel his team to the next round of the playoffs:

And this two-run homer in Game 3 of the Championship Series to give the Dodgers a 4-0 lead:

Bottom line? Kiké is CLUTCH in October. The Dodgers will need more “Playoff Kiké” in the World Series if they want to win it all.

The entire Dodgers bullpen

You may hear the term “bullpen series” in conversations about Dodgers pitching for the World Series. While the Dodgers’ starters are solid, none of them are expected to pitch particularly deep into games. That means that the responsibility of keeping the powerful Yankees’ bats quiet will likely rest on the shoulders of the Dodgers’ relief pitchers. Expect to see plenty of guys like Ben Casparius, Anthony Banda, Michael Kopech and Blake Treinen, who came through clutch for the Dodgers in the conclusive Game 6 of the NLCS:

Yankees players to watch

Aaron Judge, center field

Standing 6-foot-7 and weighing 282 lbs., New York Yankees captain and outfielder Aaron Judge is one of the most imposing figures in baseball. He is a towering human who hits towering home runs — 58 of them during the regular season — and he’s expected to win the American League MVP Award this year. Here he is punishing a poor, defenseless baseball in the ALCS:

Win a bar bet: Judge is from Sacramento and played college baseball at Fresno State.

Juan Soto, right field

Don’t let his youth fool you, this 25-year-old phenom is the real deal. Soto already has a World Series ring, which he won with the Washington Nationals in 2019 at age 21. He was also the hero of the ALCS this year for the Yankees — he smashed a 3-run-homer in the 10th inning of Game 6 to give the Yankees the lead, and ultimately the series-winning victory:

Giancarlo Stanton, designated hitter

The only thing you really need to know about Stanton is that he hits baseballs very, very far. In 2015, while he was with the Miami Marlins, he hit a home run out of Dodger Stadium. Literally:

And when he makes contact, he hits the ball VERY hard. Watch how fast this ball comes off the bat:

For those of you without a radar gun built into your brain, that ball traveled 446 feet and came off the bat at a speed of 117.5 miles per hour, according to the MLB’s metric tracking system Statcast. Look for Dodgers pitchers to try and pitch around Stanton.

Gerrit Cole, starting pitcher

The ace pitcher of the Yankees staff, Gerrit Cole, is expected to start Game 1 of the World Series Friday night. He’s got devastating pitches that can make even the best hitter miss, and the longer he goes the harder he gets to hit:

Luke Weaver, closing pitcher

Sure, he might be wiry, but don’t sleep on Yankees’ closing pitcher Luke Weaver. His job is to come in to the game in the final inning of the game when his team has the lead and literally close the door on a comeback, like he did here against the Royals in the ALDS:

Weaver’s also an, um, interesting cat, shall we say? But hey, his interviews make for great content.

Celebrate good times

When you’re watching the World Series, you might notice the Dodgers break out some unique celebrations. For example, you’ll likely see this one when a Dodgers hitter gets on base:

It’s believed to have been started by Kiké Hernández during Spring Training this year, and while it’s not exactly clear what its origins are, the internet believes it’s a nod to a dance from the popular anime series Dragon Ball Z.

And if (OK, when) the Dodgers hit a home run, you might see them get showered with sunflower seeds when they return to the dugout after rounding the bases:

This celebration was started by outfielder Teoscar Hernández, who reportedly brought it with him from his days with the Toronto Blue Jays. Which may explain why others on the team don’t quite have the hang of it yet:

We still love you, Mookie. Here’s hoping we see a lot of sunflower seeds flying in the coming week. Go Dodgers!

It's not everyday you can credit one of the world's biggest pop stars for rekindling your memories of a place.

So, thank you, Harry Styles, for reminding us of the mesmerizing, confounding, iconic and the brashly weird wonders of the Bonaventure Hotel in downtown L.A.

Last week, the singer returned to pop music after a four-year respite with the surprise release of a new album. Along came the first music video for “Aperture,” a breezy electronic number that unfolds as a non-sequitur romp through a sleek hotel — beginning as an inexplicable chase, then breaks into a long, nifty dance sequence, and crescendos in a hat tip to Dirty Dancing.

The absurdity makes for a nice fit.

In the video, when Styles steps onto the escalator before realizing he is being followed, a distant recognition went off in my head.

The escalator at the Bonaventure.

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The Bonaventure has no bad angles.

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That hunch grew more certain when he and his pursuer tumbled down a spiral of staircases that's almost Hitchcockian in its composition.

Spiraling staircase inside the Bonaventure.

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The Bonaventure's curved skylight.

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And later, when the two somersault through a cocktail lounge with Los Angeles twinkling in the backdrop, the setting could only have been The BonaVista, the revolving restaurant (yes, it really spins) on the 34th floor of the Bonaventure.

Making a cameo

Styles is the latest among a long list of artists and moviemakers to make use of the location. In 1993's In the Line of Fire, Clint Eastwood and John Malkovich had their big shoot-out finale there, and managed to squeeze in a little repartee inside one of its famous capsule elevators. More recently, Kendrick Lamar and SZA’s "Luther" and Maroon 5 and LISA's "Priceless" prominently featured the hotel.

Bonaventure under construction in the mid-1970s.

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The Bonaventure in 1987.

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Since it opened in January 1977, the behemoth — towering hundreds of feet over Figueroa Street with some 1,400 rooms and the reigning title as Los Angeles's largest hotel — all but demanded the attention.

The Bonaventure was built between 1974 and 1976 in the midst of Bunker Hill's redevelopment that started two decades back with land seizures through eminent domain and the evictions of thousands of low-income Angelenos.

The ambition was to remake the urban core into a world-class arts and cultural destination.

The atrium of the Bonaventure.

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Architect and real estate developer John C. Portman brought his signature vaulting atrium to the task. For the Hyatt in his hometown of Atlanta, that feature was 22 stories high. For the Bonaventure, the atrium was seven.

The Bonaventure’s interior has been described as Brutalist in style, a raw concrete maze of dangling lounges, shooting columns, swirling staircases, curved walkways, glass elevators and seemingly dead ends. Its mirrored and cylindrical exterior has been called postmodern and futuristic.

Raw concrete of the Bonaventure.

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The staircases.

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Portman's idea was to create a city within its walls, and populated his creation with shops, restaurants and other amenities so people simply wouldn’t have to leave.

A returned visit

I have always thought of it looking a little dated, like a sad disco ball.

A few days ago, I went to the Bonaventure again for old times’ sake. I took this same walk several times a week for six years, when I worked downtown in the mid-aughts. Back then, this network of pedways was really our only way to get to any place for coffee or lunch.

View of the Bonaventure taken from the 3rd and Fig. pedway.

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The Bonaventure was one of our options, with its food court on the fourth floor. Sometimes, I spent my lunch simply walking its various floors, entranced by the vast, hushed space that felt somehow endless and somewhat abandoned. I have always thought it was the perfect setting for a chase scene.

On my latest visit, the lines and curves were clashing and crisscrossing in ways that I hadn't before noticed. Cultural theorists have famously written about the disorientation the building is said to inspire — how easily you can feel lost.

And what a privilege it is.

Thanks, Harry, for the nudge to go and spend a couple leisurely hours getting lost in a quintessentially Los Angeles riddle.

Everyone should do it.

Oliver Mayer is an award-winning playwright and professor of dramatic writing at USC. But recently he found out his students love him for yet another talent: the "most calming professor."

“Are my students falling asleep in my class?" he said, joking.

Mayer won a competition at the university set up by the Trojan Health Club and mental health company Calm to find the most tranquil teacher. Students voted him most calming professor and he was awarded the opportunity to record a Sleep Story for Calm app users.

The professor said, for him, it means more than ever to be considered a voice of calm, especially in what he calls the “upside down days” we’re living through. And Mayer also enjoyed being a twilight tour guide for his city.

“I do love the idea that not only might I be calming someone with a route through Los Angeles, but I’m also hopefully inspiring students and everyone else to explore their cities, Los Angeles and otherwise,” he said.

Mayer's sunset trek includes an audio journey to the Griffith Observatory:
 
“Our climb ends. Here we are: The perfect place to fall asleep under the stars," he says on the recording.

"And we easily find a spot to park.”

Maybe the most calming words an Angeleno can hear.

Hear for yourself

Mayer’s Sleep Story is available on the Calm app. You can check out a preview here.

Big Bear’s famous bald eagle nest has taken a turn — both of Jackie and Shadow’s eggs have been attacked by ravens.

In the nest overlooking Big Bear Lake, a raven could be seen poking a large hole into, and potentially eating, one of the eagle eggs. The intrusion was noticed on a popular YouTube livestream run by the nonprofit Friends of Big Bear Valley.

Jenny Voisard, the organization’s media and website manager, confirmed the crack in Friends of Big Bear Valley’s official Facebook group, which has nearly 400,000 members, after Jackie and Shadow were away from the nest, and eggs, for several hours Friday.

Voisard told LAist one of the eggs may still be partly intact, but both eggs are believed to be breached. Jackie returned to their nest shortly after the raven left to lay on the remaining egg, according to organization records.

“Our hearts are with Jackie and Shadow always and we wrap our arms around them,” Voisard wrote. “Our hearts are also with you eagle fam, we know how you are feeling now."

“Step away from the screen when needed,” she continued in the post. “Try and rest tonight.”

How we got here

Jackie laid the first egg of the season around 4:30 p.m. last Friday and the second egg around 5:10 p.m. Monday as thousands of eager fans watched online.

It was almost exactly a year after the feathered duo welcomed the first egg of the 2025 season.

Bald eagles generally have one clutch per season, according to Friends of Big Bear Valley. A second clutch is possible if the eggs don’t make it through the early incubation process.

For example, Jackie laid a second clutch in February 2021 after the first round of eggs was broken or destroyed by ravens the month before.

Jackie and Shadow may have the left the nest unattended Friday because they knew on some level "that not everything was right," Voisard wrote.

"We are hopeful however, because bald eagles can lay replacement clutches if something happens early enough in the season," she continued. "The fact that the raven came to do its job so quickly may be just what Jackie and Shadow needed."

A raven is believed to have breached both eggs in Big Bear's famous nest.

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Watch the nest

This is a developing story and will be updated.

The Meta researcher’s tone was alarmed.

“oh my gosh yall IG is a drug,” the user experience specialist allegedly wrote to a colleague, referring to the social media platform Instagram. “We’re basically pushers... We are causing Reward Deficit Disorder bc people are binging on IG so much they can’t feel reward anymore.”

The researcher concluded that users’ addiction was “biological and psychological” and that company management was keen to exploit the dynamic. “The top down directives drive it all towards making sure people keep coming back for more,” the researcher added.

The conversation was included recently as part of a long-simmering lawsuit in a California-based federal court. Condensing complaints from hundreds of school districts and state attorneys general, including California’s, the suit alleges that social media companies knew about risks to children and teens but pushed ahead with marketing their products to them, putting profits above kids’ mental health. The suit seeks monetary damages and changes to companies’ business practices.

The suit, and a similar one filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, targets Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, and Snap. The cases are exposing embarrassing internal conversations and findings at the companies, particularly Facebook and Instagram owner Meta, further tarnishing their brands in the public eye. They are also testing a particular vector of attack against the platforms, one that targets not so much alarming content as design and marketing decisions that accelerated harms. The upshot, some believe, could be new forms of regulation, including at the federal level.

One document discussed during a hearing this week included a 2016 email from Mark Zuckerberg about Facebook’s live videos feature. In the email, the Meta chief wrote, “we’ll need to be very good about not notifying parents / teachers” about teens’ videos.

“If we tell teens’ parents about their live videos, that will probably ruin the product from the start,” he wrote, according to the email.

In slides summarizing internal tech company documents, released this week as part of the litigation, an internal YouTube discussion suggested that accounts from minors in violation of YouTube policies were actively on the platform for years, producing content an average of “938 days before detection – giving them plenty of time to create content and continue putting themselves and the platform at risk.”

A spokesperson for Meta didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

A YouTube spokesperson, José Castañeda, described the slide released this week as “a cherry-picked view of a much larger safety framework” and said the company uses more than one tool to detect underage accounts, while taking action every time it finds an underage account.

In court, the companies have argued that they are making editorial decisions permitted by the First Amendment,. That trial is set for June.

The state court litigation moved into jury selection this week, increasing the pressure on social media companies.

While the state and federal cases differ slightly, the core argument is the same: that social media companies deliberately designed their products to hook young people, leading to disastrous but foreseeable consequences.

“It's led to mental health issues, serious anxiety, depression, for many. For some, eating disorders, suicidality,” said Previn Warren, co-lead counsel on the case in federal court. “For the schools, it’s been lost control over the educational environment, inability of teachers to really control their classrooms and teach.”

A federal suit

Meta and other companies have faced backlash for years over their treatment of kids on their platforms, including Facebook and Instagram. Parents, lawmakers and privacy advocates have argued that social media contributed to a mental health crisis among young people and that tech companies failed to act when that fact became clear.

Those allegations gained new scrutiny last month when a brief citing still-sealed documents in the federal suit became public.

While the suit also names TikTok, Snap, and Google as defendants, the filing includes allegations against Meta that are especially detailed.

In the more than 200-page filing, for example, the plaintiffs argue that Meta deliberately misled the public about how damaging their platforms were.

Warren pointed to claims in the brief that Meta researchers found that 55% of Facebook users had “mild” problematic use of the platform, while 3.1 percent had “severe” problems. Zuckerberg, according to the brief, pointed out that 3% of billions would still be millions of people.

But the brief claims the company published research noting only that "we estimate (as an upper bound) that 3.1% of Facebook users in the US experience problematic use.”

“That’s a lie,” Warren said.

In response to recent interest in the suits, Meta published a blog post this month arguing that the litigation “oversimplifies” the issue of youth mental health, and pointed to past instances where it has worked with parents and families with features to protect kids.

The federal case faced a key hearing this week, as the defendants argued that a judge should summarily dismiss the case. A decision on that motion is likely coming in the next few weeks, Warren said.

Social media companies, like other web-based services, receive protection from some legal claims under a part of federal law. Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act gives legal immunity to website operators for potentially illegal content on their platforms.

Mary Anne Franks, a legal scholar in First Amendment issues at George Washington University who has long studied Section 230, said rather than online content in and of itself, the recent social media cases are focusing on the design of the platforms and their marketing.

“The litigation strategy is saying it's the way that you're providing that space and you're pushing this toward individuals that are vulnerable that is really an issue here,” she said. “It's your own conduct, not somebody else's.”

The companies are making key decisions behind the scenes, she said, and could be held responsible for them.

“You were manipulating things,” she said the plaintiffs are arguing. “You were deliberately making choices about what comes to the top or what is directly accessible or may be tempting to vulnerable users.”

A California state trial begins

Meanwhile, the related state lawsuit went to jury selection this week.

The case, which makes similar claims about personal injury caused by the social media companies, has also drawn nationwide attention, and major industry figures like Zuckerberg are expected to appear on the stand.

The personal injury case focuses on an unnamed plaintiff who claims to have had her mental health damaged by an addiction to social media.

In a last-minute development this week, TikTok and Snap reportedly reached undisclosed settlements in the case. Meta and Google are continuing as defendants.

Franks said these trials could be a tipping point in regulating how tech companies design and market their products. While the companies have faced scrutiny in the past, she said, the glare of examination at trial could be especially bright.

“There's always been talk of it and the members of Congress have kind of said, ‘maybe we'll regulate you,’” she said. “I think now the platforms are really getting nervous about what this is going to mean if they look really bad on the stand.”

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.