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Dodgers thank fans, turn attention to World Series ‘Three-peat’

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Retiring Dodgers pitcher Clayton Kershaw speaks during their 2025 World Series celebration on Monday at Dodger Stadium. (Photo by Keith Birmingham, Pasadena Star-News/SCNG)

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LOS ANGELES — Mission accomplished.

With a crowd estimated at upward of 200,000 lining the streets of downtown Los Angeles and 52,703 more packing Dodger Stadium one last time before winter, the Dodgers celebrated their 2025 championship on Monday.

“It was amazing,” pitcher Blake Snell said after the parade and celebratory rally. “I mean I want to do it again. Like, let’s run it back again right now and then do it again. I mean it was unbelievable. I had the time of my life.”

It was the first time for Snell but back-to-back years for the Dodgers, the first World Series champions to successfully defend their title since the New York Yankees reeled off three in a row 1998 through 2000.

From the moment Ice Cube rolled into Dodger Stadium in the same Dodger blue 1957 Chevy Bel Air with the top down and delivered the 2025 Commissioner’s Trophy – just as he had delivered the 2024 championship trophy to the ring ceremony at the home opener in March – the talk was about doing it again … again.

Dodgers manager Dave Roberts even said he called former Lakers coach Pat Riley to make sure it was okay to use the phrase Riley trademarked back in 1988.

“I talked to my friend Pat Riley to get permission,” Roberts told the packed stadium. “What’s better than two? Three – three-peat!! Three-peat!!”

During last year’s postgame celebration after Game 5 in New York, Shohei Ohtani sought out Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman and told him “Nine more! Let’s do this nine more times” – a reference to the length of Ohtani’s contract.

Interviewed during the parade on Monday, Ohtani’s outlook hadn’t changed.

“I’m already thinking about the third time we’re going to do this,” the two-way star said in Japanese.

His teammates found other ways to say the same thing. Even team owner Mark Walter vowed to be “back next year” for another championship celebration.

“Job in 2024? Done. Job in 2025? Done,” first baseman Freddie Freeman said. “Job in 2026? Starts now.”

Shortstop Mookie Betts – a four-time champion including the 2018 Boston Red Sox title – raised his hand and saw unfinished business.

“I got four. Now it’s time to fill that hand all the way up, baby,” he said to the crowd at the stadium. “Three-peat – never sounded so sweet. Somebody make that a T-shirt.”

Even Friedman couldn’t help but play to the crowd.

“To the most loyal and dedicated fans in all of sports, I have a crazy idea for you – how about we do it again?” he said at the rally.

Fresh from the draining drama of one of the most compelling World Series in recent memory, Friedman joked about next year’s challenge.

“It feels like the third one’s got to be easier than back-to-back,” he said with a laugh. “Yeah, I mean, obviously it’s difficult. We knew it was difficult. Living it – it felt even more difficult than we could have imagined. So in my head, I’m just tricking myself that the three-peat is easier than the back-to-back. Just to give me some peace of mind in the next couple of months over the winter.”

Even before last year’s World Series victory, Friedman had plainly stated his goal is to establish this as “the golden era of Dodgers baseball.”

“It was certainly a goal. I’d like to think it was an expectation. Those things blend together a little bit for me,” he said Monday. “But it was absolutely a motivating factor looking back from 2015 on of doing everything we could for some period in time to be able to look back and say that was the golden era of Dodger baseball, which is an incredibly high bar. But that was what motivated us and pushed us in a lot of ways and will continue to.”

With the first back-to-back titles in a quarter-century, three titles in six years, five National League pennants in the past nine and 12 division titles in the past 13 years, the Dodgers have already achieved that – and moved into the dynasty category.

“I think definitionally it’s a dynasty,” Friedman said. “But that to me, in a lot of ways, kind of caps it if you say, ‘Okay, this is what it is.’ For me, it’s still evolving and growing and we want to add to it and we want to continue it and do everything we can to put it at a level where people after us have a hard time reaching.”



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