Baseball is just a game. Except on Friday afternoon at Chavez Ravine, 42,458 fans didn’t flock to Dodger Stadium to watch one. 

They arrived with their kids, their friends, their parents and grandparents, many of whom once watched Fernando Valenzuela electrify a city and ignite a movement, for a party both four and 36 years in the making. 

When the Dodgers won it all in 2020, the only fans their stadium welcomed came in the form of cardboard cutouts. The real ones were watching from their homes, confined by the limitations of a pandemic that forced the postseason to be played in a Texas bubble and denied the winners the parade they had always imagined.

Despite all the winning the Dodgers had done over the last few decades, including 11 straight trips to the postseason before this year, they hadn’t celebrated a full-season World Series championship since 1988. 

On Friday afternoon, on what would have been Valenzuela’s 64th birthday, a city erupted and a long-awaited parade began. 

“It certainly made up for 2020,” manager Dave Roberts said. “Obviously there’s a lot of players in 2020 that didn’t get to appreciate and experience what we experienced, but this is for them, too.”

The Dodgers returned home from New York, where they had silenced the critics and naysayers who tried to claim the only championship they’d won in the last 30 years, a 60-game sprint, somehow didn’t count the same. They demonstrated they could win in an unprecedented sprint. This year, they displayed they could emerge from a rigorous marathon, too. 

Baseball is just a game, but the tears that welled up in the eyes of Dodgers players when they finally got their parade suggested more. 

The lengthy build-up to the occasion, Clayton Kershaw explained, might have made it “even sweeter.”

“I waited a long time for this,” Kershaw said. “I’m just so thankful to every single fan that came out, so thankful at how well they’ve treated me and my family for all these years. I mean, we’ve been through it. We’ve been through some stuff. To be able to see them as happy as they were, be able to celebrate with us, it means the world to me. It really does.”

Angelenos flooded the streets to mark the occasion, including hundreds of thousands on the Dodgers’ parade route, which started at City Hall, took the team through downtown Los Angeles and eventually ended at the place where they won 52 regular-season games this year, then clinched the NLDS and NLCS. 

Roberts began October on the hot seat after a couple early playoff exits. He began November on a ceremony stage at Dodger Stadium, where he danced alongside Ice Cube, having expertly orchestrated his team to a championship.

“Today,” Roberts said, “was a good day.” 

The way the Dodgers expressed their jubilation varied, as one by one some of the most prominent figures took the microphone. 

Some, including Shohei Ohtani, spoke in their second language. The prized free-agent acquisition, after six years without a winning season to begin his career in Anaheim, addressed the crowd in English to express his appreciation after winning a World Series in year one with the Dodgers. 

“This is so special,” he said. “I’m so honored to be here and be part of this team. Congratulations, Los Angeles. Thank you guys.”

Many kept it brief: “We’re world f—ing champions, motherf—er,” Walker Buehler said, two days after throwing the final pitch at Yankee Stadium. 

Levity was a popular form of expression, including from another player who furthered his October legend. 

“Ice Cube came out in Game 2, and with his performance we didn’t even need to play the game, we had already won it,” Kiké Hernández said. “Then we go to New York, and this guy, he used to be fat, he’s not fat anymore, his name is Joe. He came out and sang, and guess what, we didn’t even need to play because after that performance, we had already won.” 

Mookie Betts, meanwhile, pointed to his hand.

The addition of Betts sparked the Dodgers’ last championship season, but he had struggled through the past couple Octobers before breaking out again this postseason, slashing .290/.387/.565 with four homers and becoming the only active position player in the majors with three World Series rings. 

“I’m trying to fill this hand up, LA,” said Betts, who signed a 12-year contract extension during the Dodgers’ 2020 World Series run.

Baseball is just a game, but for many Dodgers veterans, it also led to a cathartic release. 

There was Freddie Freeman, who had battled not only ankle, finger and rib injuries but also personal distress throughout the season’s second half. His 3-year-old son, Max, persevered through a sudden, scary autoimmune illness that at one point rendered him temporarily unable to walk. When Freeman returned from the emergency family list in early August after Max began to improve, the Dodger Stadium crowd gave him a standing ovation that stuck with him as cheers rained down again Friday. 

“You guys showed out for my family and I,’ Freeman said. “That was one of the greatest experiences I’ve ever had on the field. I was so touched. I did everything I could to get out on this field for you guys. And I’m glad I did.”

There was Teoscar Hernández, who joined the Dodgers on a one-year deal after his market didn’t materialize the way he expected last winter. He decided to go to Los Angeles for the chance to win, then provided a vital jolt to the Dodger lineup in a bounceback year. Hernández, who quickly became a quick fan favorite, as the cheers indicated Friday, got choked up as he grabbed the microphone and thanked the crowd. 

The impending free agent also expressed hope to return next year as a Dodger, calling it “the priority.” 

“I knew it was going to be good,” Teoscar Hernández said. “I knew a lot of things were about to happen in a good way, but this is way more than I expected.”

And then there was Kershaw, the embodiment of the franchise’s colossal highs and gut-wrenching lows of the past two decades.

“I didn’t have anything to do with this championship, but it feels like the best feeling in the world,” Kershaw said to a cheering crowd. “Dodger for life.”

The future Hall of Famer was unable to contribute down the stretch of the 2024 season after trying and failing to push multiple injuries. He will need two surgeries on Wednesday, one to address the left big toe and foot issues that forced him out for the year and another to fix the meniscus in his left knee. 

That’s part of why it was so meaningful to him that Roberts and Kershaw’s teammates still beckoned him to the stage to say a few words in front of a fanbase that has lived and died with each pitch, with each grueling defeat and euphoric win, the same way he has for 17 years. 

Next year, Kershaw plans to make it an 18th in a Dodger jersey, whether he picks up his player option or not. 

The 2020 season championship brought him relief. This one induced only tears of happiness. 

“Baseball is just a game, everybody says that,” Kershaw said. “But I don’t know, man. You look around and you see how much it means to so many different people. I think it might be baseball, but it means a lot to a lot of different people, and I’m no different.” 

Rowan Kavner is an MLB writer for FOX Sports. He previously covered the L.A. Dodgers, LA Clippers and Dallas Cowboys. An LSU grad, Rowan was born in California, grew up in Texas, then moved back to the West Coast in 2014. Follow him on Twitter at @RowanKavner. 

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