The Brief

October baseball is here a day early, with Major League Baseball's first postseason games scheduled to begin Tuesday afternoon.

It's a wide-open field this postseason with no clear favorites like last year's Los Angeles Dodgers. No team in baseball this year won more than 97 games, making the 2025 Milwaukee Brewers the losing-est winningest team in baseball since 2013 (not counting the pandemic-shortened 2020 season).

That means it's anybody's World Series title to claim — including, potentially, one of three franchises that have never before won the Fall Classic. We've got the coasts: New York, Los Angeles, Seattle, San Diego, Boston, Philadelphia. And we've got the Midwest: Chicago, Milwaukee, Cleveland, Detroit. We've even got Canada! (Sorry, Southerners.)

Still, with 12 teams in the mix, it can be a lot to sort out which to root for. Let us help.

Do you like rooting for a team that has never been here before? (In other words, are you a human with a heart?)

Of the five teams that have never won a World Series, the Seattle Mariners are the only to have never even reached the Fall Classic. We're talking about fans who have rooted for this team for 49 long seasons, watching as literally every other active franchise has taken a swing at a title. For a particularly bad 20-year stretch that ended in 2022, the M's had the ignominious dishonor of owning the longest postseason drought of any of the big four North American men's professional sports.

But the mood is suddenly sunny in Seattle, where catcher — and perhaps AL MVP — Cal Raleigh has had a historic year, becoming just the seventh player in baseball history to hit 60 home runs in a single season. Ownership bought big at the trade deadline and in September, the Mariners turned into the second-hottest team in baseball to claim an AL West division title for the first time since 2001.

The Mariners' No. 2 seed means a ticket straight to the ALDS. They'll face the winner of the Wild Card Series between the Detroit Tigers and Cleveland Guardians, both of which — despite their own long-running title droughts — have at least played in a World Series (and in the last 13 years to boot).

Christian Yelich of the Milwaukee Brewers wasn't alive the last time his team went to the World Series (1982). The Brewers have a small payroll but were one of baseball's hottest teams in the summer.

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Seattle's a no-go, but you otherwise dig that kind of underdog vibe? 

Good news. Two other teams in the postseason have also never won the World Series. You can choose between the San Diego Padres, who haven't been back to the World Series since they lost in 1998, or the Milwaukee Brewers, who haven't returned since their last try 43 years ago in 1982. Fans of the Brewers and the Padres have suffered too!

Both teams have become playoff regulars in recent years but have yet to get over the hump. The Brewers emerged in July and August as baseball's hottest team. At $121 million, they are in the lowest third of payrolls in baseball, dwarfed by big spenders and fellow National League contenders like the Los Angeles Dodgers and Philadelphia Phillies. The Padres are bigger spenders, and that money has brought them some of the game's biggest stars, including outfielder Fernando Tatis Jr. and third baseman Manny Machado — but they keep running into their rivals, the Dodgers, in the postseason. (That won't happen this year unless both teams reach the NLCS.)

Okay, enough of the underdogs. How about a good, old-fashioned rivalry? 

The New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox used to be the most toxic rivalry in baseball. (The Dodgers and Padres have taken that crown for now; last year's poisonous NLDS will be tough to top.) But they have a chance to reclaim their crown when they meet for a best-of-three series in this year's Wild Card round.

Fernando Cruz of the New York Yankees reacts during a game against the Baltimore Orioles on Sunday in New York City.

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It doesn't matter too much which team you choose. This is your chance to embrace the dark side. The Yankees are the Evil Empire, of course, but don't discount Boston. The Curse of the Bambino is way, way back in the rearview mirror these days, and the Red Sox have won four World Series in the past 21 years, and while yes, we are only talking about baseball, it's worth the reminder that seemingly every other Boston pro sports team has won at least one title since then too. (Honestly, this is making the Yankees seem long-suffering by comparison.)

The Yankees have a towering lineup, anchored by the otherworldly Aaron Judge who turned in yet another incredible season. His stats: .331 batting average, .457 on-base percentage, 1.144 OPS, plus 53 home runs — something he's now doing with such regularity that it's almost becoming boring. The Red Sox bring a spottier lineup but better pitching, especially in starter Garrett Crochet and closer Aroldis Chapman, who has posted the best ERA of his career in his [checks notes] age 37 season.

Do you love hitting for contact? 

Only seven players finished the season with a batting average of .300 or higher — and the Toronto Blue Jays, the AL's top seed, have two of them, shortstop Bo Bichette and designated hitter George Springer. Add in first baseman Vladimir Guerrero Jr. (.292) and catcher Alejandro Kirk (.282) and the Blue Jays boast four players hitting .280 or higher. The next-most is just two.

It's not small ball, exactly, that the Blue Jays play. (Their 77 stolen bases this season was third-lowest in the majors, and most playoff teams hit more sacrifice flies than Toronto.) But the team led the league in batting average, hits and on-base percentage. They were second-to-last in strikeouts. Other teams hit more home runs and scored more runs, but the Blue Jays got men on base a ton. Now that's baseball.

Do you just want to root for a winner? 

The Philadelphia Phillies could be your team. This team is a powerhouse: slugger Kyle Schwarber (56 home runs), shortstop Trea Turner (.304 batting average), outfielder Harrison Bader (who has hit .305 since joining the Phillies in a trade), first baseman Bryce Harper and outfielder Nick Castellanos (75 and 72 RBIs, respectively). Even though they lost their ace starter Zack Wheeler to injury in August, this is still a great team that can crush anyone on any day.

Superstar Shohei Ohtani of the Los Angeles Dodgers bats against the Seattle Mariners last Friday. Ohtani finished the regular season with a career-high 55 home runs. He didn't pitch as many games due to injury, but still registered 62 strikeouts in 14 games.

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The Los Angeles Dodgers, their 2024 World Series rings still fresh from the jeweler, are a good choice too. The Dodgers are dealing with some injuries, including to catcher Will Smith, but what team is 100% healthy? And this top of the order will never not be crazy: Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman, all three of them MVPs.

Since he returned to the mound in July after elbow surgery, the two-way phenom Ohtani has posted a 2.87 ERA as a pitcher, the second-best of his career. Yet Ohtani had to use his limited appearances this year as a sort of rehab assignment, usually pitching just a few innings, and he only lasted a full six innings for the first time last week.

That prompted questions for some about how Ohtani might fit in a postseason strategy. On Monday, his teammate Betts dismissed those concerns.

"I think with him probably being the best player in the world, he can fit in wherever he wants to fit in," Betts told reporters. "Whenever he feels like he needs to go in and pitch, I'm pretty positive nobody with a Dodgers uniform will say no."

Or do you just want to watch some great young players? 

Then tune in to it all. Don't miss the Detroit Tigers ace Tarik Skubal, who is at the peak of his powers and looks destined to win the second Cy Young with his career-best 2.21 ERA. The Chicago Cubs are a likable bunch, with center fielder Pete Crow-Armstrong, who's due for a bounceback after cooling off from a hot start in the second half. And the Cincinnati Reds have one of the most electric players in the sport in shortstop Elly de la Cruz, who is making his playoff debut in a Wild Card series against the Dodgers. You can't go wrong.
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It’s about the size of a park bench and made of steel and wood. The bench’s arm rests are formed by the letters “L” and “A” in a design that’s unmistakable to any sports fan. But the welder-artist who created it says it’s not a Dodgers bench.

“This is about civic pride, L.A. pride. I made a design statement saying that it has nothing affiliated with the Dodgers,” said Steve Campos.

Campos grew up near Dodger Stadium, raised by parents who were die-hard Dodgers fans. So much, that they named him after Steve Garvey but that legacy doesn’t keep him from confronting how the Dodgers benefitted from the mass displacement of working-class people from Chavez Ravine after World War Two. That’s why he calls it an L.A. Bench, and not a Dodgers Bench.

The logo may be synonymous with the city's beloved baseball team, but the design of the interlocking letters was used by the L.A. Angels minor league baseball team before the Dodgers moved to L.A. in 1958.

“The monogram was here before the Dodgers,” Campos said.

A second-generation welder

Welding is the Campos family business. His father created gates and security bars for windows and doors for L.A. clients. That was the foundation for the work Campos has done for two decades since graduating from Lincoln High School, L.A. Trade Tech College, and enrolling in a summer program at Art Center in Pasadena.

The inspiration for the L.A. Bench came last year while he was playing around in his shop creating versions of the L.A. logo. A friend he hangs with at Echo Park Lake asked Campos to make him a piece of furniture.

“I was trying to figure out what my friend Curly wanted. He liked Dodgers and drinking and getting into fights, so I was like, 'Let me make something with the LA monogram,'” he said.

Welder-artist Steve Campos created whimsical steel sculptures with the LA logo.

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It didn’t design itself. He said he had to lengthen the legs on the “A” and lean the back of the “L” in order to make the bench functional. In the process, he’s made a piece of furniture with a ubiquitous logo that he’s embedded with his own L.A. pride, as well as city history past and present.

LA civic pride travels to Japan

Campos vacationed in Japan the last week of April and took advantage of the trip to reach out to people who may be interested in the L.A. Bench. He was caught off guard by people’s reaction when he showed them pictures of it.

“They look at it and they go, 'Oh, Ohtani bench,'” he said.

For them, it’s still a bench embedded with pride, he said, but centered around Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani, an icon in his native Japan.

Campos has made four L.A. benches and is selling them fully assembled, he said, for $2,500 each — taking into account his labor and how costly the raw materials have become. For now, he’s offering the metal parts as a package for $500, which requires the buyer to purchase the wood for the seat and the back — an easy process, he said.

While he has no plans to mass produce the L.A. Bench, he does have one goal in mind that shows how hard it is for him to separate L.A. civic pride and the Dodgers.

“I would love to get a couple of them installed at Dodger Stadium,” he said.

The Venice Boardwalk after sunset has generally been a no-go zone for tourists and locals alike, as the beachside bars and restaurants close on the early side and safety is often an issue. Now, a group of artists is out to bring some vibrancy to the creative neighborhood with a series of new installations that will include live evening performances – and even a “Venice Opera House.”

“Let's play with light and let's play with sound and give people a reason to come to the Boardwalk after sundown,” said artist and entrepreneur Stefan Ashkenazy, who is curating the project and owns the buildings housing them. “I mean, let's just be open 24 hours a day.”

The concept doesn’t have an official name yet, but he’s been calling it “See World.”

Artist James Ostrer's space looks out from a bed through the fence to the ocean at Venice Beach.

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William Attaway, a longtime Venice artist, created a gallery space filled with various paintings and sculptures.

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The pair of modern buildings on the Venice Boardwalk at Thornton Ave. – with their big balconies, floor-to-ceiling glass windows, and seven open garage-style retail spaces – have sat mostly empty since Snapchat vacated their beachside offices in 2019. Ashkenazy recently bought the building and recruited artists to fill those front-facing spaces with creative work until a full-time tenant comes in.

Over the past several weeks the installations have been created in real-time, in public.

All of the projects are loosely along the theme of “home,” with each artist claiming a “room” in the two buildings that stretch across a full block on the Boardwalk. Several local Venice artists are featured, including William Attaway, whose intricate mosaic work is recognizable on the Venice public restrooms along the beach. Attaway’s space features a floating larger-than-life-sized statue and various works in a mini-gallery. In the next room is Robin Murez’s pieces, featuring carved wooden seats from her beloved neighborhood Venice Flying Carousel.

Ashkenazy is no stranger to wild (and wildly successful) art ideas. He’s the owner of the Petit Ermitage hotel in West Hollywood, a longtime haven for visiting artists, and the founder of the decade-old Bombay Beach Biennale, where artists install all kinds of work in an annual event near the Salton Sea. Many of the artists from that community are featured at the Venice project.

A "Venice Opera House" will host pop-up music events throughout the summer.

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New York-based artist Greg Haberny's paintings on the wall of his Venice space.

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New York-based artist Greg Haberny and London-based artist James Ostrer have brought some of their work in the Bombay Beach Biennale to the Venice project. Their windows on the Boardwalk both speak to a child-like sense of wonder and creativity.

“I think it's just kind of exploring and playing a little bit, to have the freedom to be able to do that,” Haberny says of his imagined child’s bedroom space, which includes a fort made out of puffy cheese balls. “It's a big space, too.
It's beautiful.”

Ostrer is experimenting with a performance art idea where he sits in bed amongst a room full of his own artwork, which he describes as “happy art with an edge.” Looking out at the ocean from the bed, he’s invited passersby to sit and have chats with him about his work or anything else they want to talk about.

“It’s a very intimate space, so you have a different kind of conversation,” he said. “I use art to channel human creativity, and [talk about] dark things.”

While there are open fences that block off the spaces, they aren’t sealed up at night. Both Ashkenazy and the team of artists seemed open to the idea that anything could happen and that the installations are a conversation with the public – and with that comes some risk.

Greg Haberny (right) works with his assistants on an installation featuring kid-inspired graffiti art and a "cheesy puff" fort.

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“I don't really know if I [would] say worried, but I guess it's just the cost of doing business,” Haberny said. “I don't really make things to get damaged or broken, sure. But I have done [things like] burned all my paintings and then made paint out of ash.”

While he’s felt safe – and even slept overnight in the installation – Ostrer has been collaborating with a local female artist who performs in a pig mask in front of his installation some nights. Watching her perform, he said, has taught him about the vulnerability of women in public spaces like the Boardwalk. “I've started to, on a very fractional level, have seen how scary that is. Because I've sat in the bed behind her performing at the front here… the way in which men are approaching her and shrieking at her … it's shocking.”

Ashkenazy says he will keep the artists in the space, potentially rotating new ones in, until a fulltime tenant takes over.

“This is an experiment … and after acquiring the building, the intention wasn't, ‘let's open a bunch of public art spaces,’ he said. “It is kind of …what the building wanted and listening to what the Boardwalk needed. Let's play, let's have the artists that we love and appreciate have a space to play and engage and give the locals and the visitors to the Boardwalk something to experience.”

A new trail across the beloved natural area of Elephant Hill in Northeast Los Angeles is officially opening this weekend.

The route is years in the making, and it's a big milestone in the decades-long conservation efforts to preserve this local jewel in the community of El Sereno.

The hiking trail connects one side of Elephant Hill to the other — from the corner of Pullman Street and Harriman Avenue all the way across to Lathrop Street.

It's 0.75 miles in total, but packs a punch.

"It's a pretty straight shot, but because of the terrain — the trail is kind of twisty and curvy. There's switchbacks — and great views," Elva Yañez, board president of the nonprofit Save Elephant Hill, said.

People have always been able to access the 110-acre green space, but Yañez said the new trail provides a safe and easy way to navigate the steep hillsides.

The El Sereno nonprofit has been working for two decades to preserve the land. Illegal dumping and off-roading have damaged the open space over the years. And the majority of the 110 acres are privately owned by an estimated 200 individual owners.

Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority (MRCA) joined the efforts in 2018, spurred by a $700,000 grant from Los Angeles County Regional Park and Open Space District, in part, to build the trail. The local agency received some $2 million in grants from the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy to add to the 10 acres of Elephant Hill it manages and conserves. This year, MCRA acquired an additional 12 parcels — or about 2.4 acres.

And the spiffy new footpath — with trail signage, information kiosks and landscape boulders — is not just a long-sought-for victory but a beginning in a sense.

"We know that it means a lot to the community," Sarah Kevorkian, who oversees the trail project for MRCA, said. "We're wrapping up the trail, but it really feels like the beginning of all that is to come."

A hint of that vision already exists — for hikers traversing the new route, courtesy of Test Plot, the L.A.-based nonprofit that works to revitalize depleted lands.

"They're able to see at the end of the trail, at the 'test plot' — exactly what a restored Elephant Hill would look like," Yañez said.

Here's a preview:

A coalition of residents from across the San Gabriel Valley are mobilizing over a battery storage project and possibly more industrial development in the City of Industry they say could pollute communities next door.

A protest is scheduled today in neighboring Rowland Heights, targeting a 400-megawatt battery energy storage facility sited on about 9 acres that was approved by the City of Industry leaders in January.

Such Battery Energy Storage Systems, or BESS, are used to keep the power grid stable, especially as output from renewable energy sources like solar and wind fluctuate. But fires involving lithium batteries at some sites have heightened environmental and public health fears.

Because of the City of Industry’s unusual, sprawling shape stretching along the 60 Freeway, it borders on more than a dozen communities, meaning what happens there can have far-reaching impact.

“Pollution does not end right at the border,” said Andrew Yip, an organizer with No Data Centers SGV Coalition. “Pollution travels.”

Some local activists with the Puente Hills Community Preservation Association have challenged the approval of the battery facility under the California Environmental Quality Act.

Beyond environmental concerns, locals have also been frustrated with how decisions are made by officials in the City of Industry, a municipality that’s almost entirely zoned for industrial use and has less than 300 residents.

Organizers say they’ve struggled to get direct responses from city officials whom they say have replaced regular meetings with special meetings, which under state law require less advance notice.

A city spokesperson has not responded to requests for comment.

The so-called Marici Energy Storage System Facility would be run by Aypa Power. The fact that the battery storage developer is owned by the private equity giant Blackstone, a major investor in AI and data centers, has only fueled concerns that a battery storage facility would lay the groundwork for data center development.

A request for comment from Aypa was not returned.

Today’s protest is taking place at Peter F. Schabarum Regional Park in Rowland Heights across the street from the Puente Hills Mall, a largely vacant “dead” mall, which activists fear could be redeveloped into a data center and bring higher utility costs and greater air and noise pollution.

Yip pointed out that industrial developments make a lot of money for the City of Industry.

“But none of these surrounding communities receive any of those benefits,” Yip said. “Yet we have to put up with all the harmful effects and impacts from this city that does all this development without really reaching out.”