Over 27 million Americans watched Game 7 of this year’s World Series between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Toronto Blue Jays. Even casual viewers who only tuned in for the deciding moments were able to recognize they were in the presence of something extraordinary. It was already a Series for the ages, topped by Game 3, which was decided by a walk-off home run in the bottom of the 18th inning by Dodgers first baseman Freddie Freeman — who had closed out Game 1 of the 2024 World Series in similar fashion, with a walk-off grand-slam against the New York Yankees. 

Freeman wasn’t even the hero of Game 3, though. That was Shohei Ohtani, the greatest baseball player since Babe Ruth, who hit two home runs, reached base nine times, and required an IV before starting Game 4 on the mound. After losing an 18-inning heartbreaker to LA in the wee hours of the morning, Toronto came back against Ohtani that night to even the Series at two games each. In Game 5, Blue Jays pitcher Trey Yesavage, a September call up to the big leagues, struck out 12 Dodgers, a rookie World Series record, to give Toronto a 3-2 Series lead. The Dodgers stayed alive in Game 6 with a dominant performance by Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who had already pitched a complete game to win Game 2, giving up only one run in six innings despite the pressure of elimination on the road. The series was tied, 3-all.

When the 2025 season began, Ohtani, Yamamoto, Freeman, and Mookie Betts — the Gold Glove right fielder who had switched to shortstop, perhaps the hardest defensive position on the field to master — were already being celebrated as the core of what might be the greatest team in baseball history. By contrast, the Blue Jays were picked by many baseball writers to finish last in their division, behind the Yankees, Red Sox, Orioles, and Rays. That the Dodgers and Blue Jays were to meet in Game 7 of the World Series underscored the fact that baseball is a team sport, where pedigree and predictive modeling can only take you so far. Baseball is a game decided not by statistics but by grit — clutch hitting, gutsy pitching, nimble fielding, heads-up baserunning, team cohesion, the ability and the will to come through when the chips are down — and often by fate. Fans knew that they had no choice other than to tune in and watch.

When the Toronto Blue Jays took an early lead on a three-run homer by Bo Bichette, it seemed like a good bet that Toronto would be celebrating a Game 7 win in front of the hometown crowd. The Dodgers limited the Blue Jays to one more run in the 6th as they scratched away with single runs of their own in the 4th, 6th, and 8th innings. They went into the top of the 9th down 4-3. Even so, a Toronto championship remained the likely outcome, especially with the Dodgers down to their last two outs and the light-hitting Miguel Rojas at the plate.

It was then that the Baseball Gods descended from heaven and began playing havoc with the fates of men. Toronto’s chosen relief pitcher, Jeff Hoffman, had been plagued all season long by a propensity for giving up home runs. During the post-season, however, Hoffman had managed to shed this failing, giving up none. Having hit a total of 57 home runs in his career as a utility infielder, Rojas was an unlikely candidate to break Hoffman’s streak of good luck. As a right-handed hitter, Rojas was also at a natural disadvantage against Hoffman, a right-handed pitcher. 

Hoffman felt confident enough in his advantages over Rojas, and in the strength of his right arm, that he personally ridiculed the Dodgers infielder earlier in the game, after Blue Jays short-stop Andres Gimenez was hit by a pitch and the benches of both teams cleared. As Dodgers reliever Will Klein remembered the incident, “Hoffman was kind of yelling at Miggy… and [Hoffman] was the first to walk away. And it was like, ‘Does he have it?’” With the benefit of hindsight, Klein added with a smirk, “If you’re going to talk crap and walk away…” 

Down to what appeared to be the last two outs of Game 7, Dave Roberts, the Dodgers manager, considered pinch-hitting for Rojas — a move that any statistician would have backed. But instead, he decided to let him hit. It is likely that not even Roberts knows why. The only person who apparently expected the swing that came next was Rojas’s wife, who had told him before the game that he would hit a home run that day. On a 3-1 count, Rojas made his wife a prophet by depositing a slider from Hoffman over the left field wall to tie the game.

You could call it divine intervention. Or you could call it an example of the power of auto-suggestion — a suggestion lovingly implanted by Rojas’s wife and then fueled mid-game by the righteous anger of every kid who has ever been picked-on in front of his teammates by a jackass. The facts are that, two outs away from defeat in Game 7, Miguel Rojas rescued the Dodgers’ chances by hitting what was arguably both the most high-leverage and most unlikely home run in World Series history — rivaled only by Hal Smith’s decisive three-run homer in the 8th inning of Game 7 of the 1960 World Series which led the Pittsburgh Pirates to victory over the New York Yankees. 

Yet that wasn’t even Rojas’ best play of the inning. In the bottom of the 9th, Rojas made a breathtaking defensive stop at second base and then, falling backwards, somehow managed to throw out a Blue Jays runner by inches at home plate to preserve the 4-4 tie he had earned only minutes earlier with his bat. The game was won in the top of the 11th inning with a solo home run by Dodgers catcher Will Smith — who set a record himself by catching every inning of the 74-inning series. 

In any other year, Smith would have been a fair choice for most valuable player of the Series — though some voters would have no doubt felt obliged to choose Rojas, on account of having the most miraculous single inning of any player in World Series history. Instead, the honor went deservedly to Yamamoto, who — after already winning Game 2 and Game 6 — somehow managed to come in during the 9th inning of Game 7 to pitch the last two and two-thirds innings, becoming the first pitcher to win three World Series games since Randy Johnson in 2001.

Success has many authors. And clearly, the Baseball Gods had had their say — the prevalence of seemingly irrational yet deeply fated outcomes are one of the game’s defining features. You simply can’t understand baseball without embracing the role of contingency in determining the game’s biggest moments; in turn, contingency requires an understanding of history, which makes the odds; and of fate, which rolls the dice. Which is why, aside from being the American game, baseball will always be catnip for writers who need a worthy subject to ponder during the long winters that come between the World Series and spring training.

I can already decree that the 2025 World Series will take its place in history as among the greatest ever played. I can say that with certainty, having watched nearly every World Series game for the past fifty years, beginning with the 1975 contest between the Cincinnati Reds and the Boston Red Sox. My stake in that Series, which concluded exactly a half-century ago as I write these words, was that my uncle owned a bar near Fenway Park called the Eliot Lounge where Red Sox players used to drink after games, which made me a die-hard Red Sox fan at the age of eight. When the Red Sox lost Game 7 to the Reds it broke my heart. It took me until the Red Sox won the 2004 World Series over the St. Louis Cardinals four games to none to begin to recover from my glimpse of a universe ruled by the unfathomable cruelty of the Gods. 

Nearly 75 million Americans shared my experience of Game 7 of the 1975 World Series — nearly three times the number who watched the Game 7 this November. What those numbers suggest is that we are no longer one country; rather, we live in a series of disconnected bubbles, each containing its own reality that is separate from the next. As a result, we find it harder to live together. This year’s World Series was a reminder that we are capable of better things, greater things, things that are actually worth sharing with one another, and not simply invective. We are capable of excellence. This reminder couldn’t come at a better time.