Dodgers crowd going wild at Yankees' elimination proves bad blood remains

While rivalries between AL and NL teams aren't overly common, one notable exception is the Los Angeles Dodgers and the New York Yankees. In addition to the usual big market East Coast vs. West Coast stuff going on, the two franchises are high profile league juggernauts that often find themselves being compared against one another even though they don't face off all that often. When they do go against each other, whether it is in the regular season or in the World Series (which has happened 12 times now), fans of both teams tend to melt down.

It some ways, it is a little sad that Yankees have already been bounced from the playoffs by the Blue Jays, as the prospect of another Dodgers-Yankees World Series sounded incredibly fun. However, don't tell the Dodgers fans who were watching LA take on the Phillies on Wednesday night, because when the Yankees score was shown on the big screen, a round of cheers came from the crowd right in the middle of Game 3 of the NLDS.

Dodgers fans were immediately thrilled by the news that the Yankees were eliminated

If we are honest in our heart of hearts, having the Yankees as a villain to almost every other fan base in MLB is genuinely great for baseball. New Yorkers are notorious loud and come across as obnoxious, which makes rivalries and bad blood escalate quickly. Going back to the George Steinbrenner days, the Yankees consistently try to go for it every year. While their last World Series win is old enough to drive, New York is still almost always in the middle of things at the end of the season.

This was a very flawed Yankees team, but Dodgers fans were honestly probably expressing a bit of relief here. While LA absolutely dominated the Yankees in the World Series last year, the idea of facing off against Max Fried, Aaron Judge, and Carlos Rodón with the 2025 season on the line does not feel awesome. Thankfully, Toronto handled them with only minor resistance.

With the Yankees out of the picture, the Dodgers now have to find a way to finish off the Phillies, who are rivals in their own right and who also just staved off elimination against the Dodgers on Wednesday night. If LA can get past Philly, which still seems very likely, the path to another World Series trophy is looking less and less intimidating after that.