The Los Angeles Dodgers and San Francisco Giants breathed more life into their rivalry this year by battling it out in a thrilling five-game NLDS, but the two teams have a long way to go before they can call themselves baseball’s biggest rivals. Just ask Mookie Betts.
After the Dodgers defeated the Giants in a thrilling 2-1 game on Thursday night, Betts was asked if he thinks the two California teams have what his former team, the Boston Red Sox, has with the New York Yankees. Betts said, “I don’t really know” and seemed hesitant to respond at first, but Max Scherzer pressured him into saying what he was thinking. The short answer was “no.”
Here’s the video:
“That Yankees-Red Sox, man, that’s mean. That’s different,” Betts said. “This is definitely different.”
Very few rivalries in sports come close to matching the intensity that we see when the Red Sox and Yankees face one another. The controversial way Game 5 of the NLDS ended might help drum up some more hostility between the Giants and Dodgers, but they’ll probably never have what the Red Sox and Yankees have. Betts understands that better than most.
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