By Rory Carroll
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – The World Series will be a truly global event as the two most storied October rivals and the game’s two best players battle it out for Major League Baseball’s ultimate prize, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said.
Huge audiences in the U.S. and Japan are expected to tune in for the series with fans eager to see the Dodgers’ Shohei Ohtani go up against the New York Yankees’ Aaron Judge in a clash of sluggers who are expected to be named MVP of their respective leagues.
“It is worldwide and that’s what’s going to make this World Series so special, so unique,” Roberts told reporters at Dodger Stadium on the eve of Friday’s Game One.
“You could easily argue that on a global scale the Yankees and the Dodgers are the most followed, the most supported, and most visible teams.
“So obviously with our two great organizations and the branding, it’s going to be very visible.”
Ohtani is a national hero in Japan and this year became the first player to hit 50 home runs and steal 50 bases in a single season, making him the inaugural member of MLB’s 50/50 club.
Every home run on his way to 50 was replayed on national news programs in Japan each night, and Japanese tourists have flocked to Dodger Stadium all year to see the 30-year-old in his first season with the team.
An Oct. 11 game between the Dodgers and the San Diego Padres that featured Ohtani and Japanese starting pitchers Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Yu Darvish averaged 12.9 million viewers in Japan, making it the country’s most-watched MLB postseason game ever.
Other notable international players on the Dodgers squad include Dominican Teoscar Hernandez and Puerto Rico’s Enrique Hernandez, while the Yankees have Venezuelan Gleyber Torres and Bahamian Jazz Chisholm in their lineup.
Mexican pitcher Fernando Valenzuela, who was a key part of the Dodgers team who beat the Yankees in the 1981 World Series and who boosted their fanbase south of the border, died this week and the team will pay tribute to him during the Series.
The Dodgers will wear patches on their uniforms featuring Valenzuela’s name and number – 34.
Roberts predicts an even larger global audience for the World Series when the sport’s two biggest market clubs, whose rivalry dates back to the 1940s, meet for a record 12th time, and first since 1981, in the Fall Classic.
“It’s going to be a global World Series,” he said.
“I still stand by the fact that more eyeballs are going to be watching this World Series than any other series in history.”
(Reporting by Rory Carroll in Los Angeles; Editing by Peter Rutherford)
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