October 24th, 2017 at 8:00 am 
by Ron Cervenka It started on February 25, 2017 when the Dodgers took the field at Camelback Ranch in Glendale, Arizona for the first of what would be 37 spring training games. This was followed by a grueling 162-game regular season, of which the Dodgers won 104 games – more than any other team in all of baseball.
Next came three National League Division Series games against the Arizona Diamondbacks and then five National League Championship Series against the Chicago Cubs.
That’s a grand total of 207 games played over the course of 241 days.
…and it all comes down to this.
Today, October 24, 2017, 241 days after that first spring training game at Camelback Ranch on February 25, the Los Angeles Dodgers will square off against the Houston Astros, who themselves won 101 regular season games and defeated the Cleveland Indians and New York Yankees in their respective Division and Championship Series, for game-1 of the 2017 World Series.
It will be the Dodgers’ 22nd trip to the World Series, of which they have won six, and the Astros second trip to the World Series, of which they have won none.
It all comes down to this.
(Photo credit – @gabbolina)
But none of that matters now, absolutely none of it. Not the 37 spring training games, not the 162 regular season games, not the eight postseason games … none of it. For all intents and purposes, the 2017 Major League Baseball season all comes down to which of these two remaining teams win four of the best-of seven World Series games played over the next week – period. That and that alone will define the 2017 baseball season.
None of the hoopla and hyperbole – most of which was (and still is) media generated – matters. Nor does the endless banter from the so-called experts and analysts on countless radio and television talk shows. Instead, it all comes down to what happens between the lines at Dodger Stadium and Minute Maid Park beginning today and through November 1 (if necessary, as they say). The first team to four wins will be crowned the champions of the baseball world and the runner-up lost to obscurity.
This is what it’s all about, winning four of seven games. Nothing else matters. Nothing.
…because it all comes down to this.
Posted in 
Maybe, I’m alone but whenever the Dodgers lost the World Series and I can still remember that, I bruted about it a while but I was always proud of winning the National League Pennant. Others may not remember it but the fans of the losing team shouldn’t forget it.
I remember my first World Series in 1974 with Cey, Lopes, Russell, Garvey’s first on 1B, The Toy Cannon, Sutton, Messersmith, Mike Marshall The First(200 innings as a reliever), – I was upset as hell at the loss, but never forgot that team. Nor the 1977-1978 teams that lost the World Series. In fact, I remember those 3 teams more than the 1981team (less deserving) that finally won the series.
’81 Dodgers less deserving? Why?
They won under the rules for that season. To get to the World Series they won five elimination games. In the World Series they were down 2-0, then won the remaining four. This is a team that won when they had to win.
In the second half they didn’t have to win. They had nothing to play for. Whether they won the second half or not they would play a division series.
Nobody knows how it would have shaken out if they had just picked up the season where it left off.
They earned that World Championship just like every other World Champion did.