The rings will come Friday.
But on Thursday, ahead of the first home game of the Dodgers’ 2025 season, reminders of the club’s 2024 World Series championship were everywhere — offering a sentimental (and not-so-subtle) indication of the stakes for this year’s title defense.
In the Dodgers’ newly renovated home clubhouse, the team’s typical home white jerseys were replaced with ceremonial championship threads; with names, numbers and the iconic ‘Dodgers’ script across the chest all colored in gold. During batting practice, stadium organist Dieter Ruhle graced a hazy afternoon scene with a playing of Queen’s “We are the Champions.” And in right field, the team’s seven previous World Series banners had been updated during offseason renovations to the stadium, with an eighth for 2024 unveiled shortly before first pitch.
It all culminated with the day’s ceremonial first pitch. On the mound stood Kirk Gibson, the Dodgers’ walk-off hero in Game 1 of the 1988 World Series. Behind the plate squatted Freddie Freeman, the walk-off hero in Game 1 of last year’s Fall Classic.
The accompanying roar from the Dodger Stadium crowd wasn’t quite to the level of either man’s iconic home run. But for an opening day pregame ceremony, it was deafening.
The Dodgers’ goal, of course, is to wind up right back here this time next year; hopeful to open next season celebrating what would represent Major League Baseball’s first repeat championship in 25 years.
It’s why, amid all the pomp and circumstance Thursday, shortstop Mookie Betts was trying to keep a bigger-picture perspective on the six months ahead.
“Obviously, every opening day is special,” he said. “But you just try to make it the same thing as always. You don’t want to add any pressure or add anything. It’s the beginning of a long grind.”
Still, the ceremonies honoring last year’s championship weren’t lost on Dodgers players and coaches, either.
“It’s special,” said reliever Evan Phillips, who opened the season on the injured list but expects to begin a rehab assignment with triple-A Oklahoma City soon. “I’ve always been a fan of the gold accessory for the champion. It’s a privilege to wear it.”
Added Tommy Edman, who was in center field for the home-opening lineup: “It’s awesome. After ending last year on such a high note, we’re excited to get the fans back out there and hopefully put on a show.”
The Dodgers, who entered the day 2-0 after sweeping their season-opening series in Japan against the Chicago Cubs last week, weren’t at full strength for the start of their three-game series at the Detroit Tigers.
Though Betts and Freddie Freeman were back in the lineup — they both missed the Tokyo series, with Betts battling a gnarly stomach virus and Freeman nursing rib discomfort — utilityman Kiké Hernández was out Thursday after waking up sick in the morning with symptoms similar to what Betts experienced over the last two weeks.
“He wasn’t feeling well and didn’t sleep well and couldn’t keep stuff down,” manager Dave Roberts said. “Let’s just hope that it’s not what Mookie dealt with.”
Roberts said the team didn’t believe Betts and Hernández’s illnesses were directly related; noting that if there were, “we would have felt that it would have happened earlier, where Mookie has been on the backside of this.”
And while no other players have been as sick as Betts — who lost more than 15 pounds during his two-week battle with what was believed to be a case of norovirus — Roberts said there are others in the clubhouse who have had “sniffles and things like that.”
Those issues, however, didn’t distract from the overall celebratory atmosphere of Thursday’s pregame festivities.
Roughly 30 minutes before first pitch, the Dodgers’ 2025 roster was welcomed down a blue carpet in center field, receiving a hero’s welcome from an early-arriving Chavez Ravine crowd. Once the team lined up down the third-base line, Ice Cube delivered the trophy with a literal victory lap, driving a blue Chevy Bel-Air around the warning track with the Commissioner’s Trophy sitting shotgun. In the center-field pavilion, members of the Dodgers’ ownership group raised a 2024 World Champions banner. In right field, the 2024 title plaque was unveiled by Southern California firefighters.
Pyrotechnics and smoke machines added to the scene, as did the roar of four fighter jets, two F-15s and two F-35s, that flew overhead during Josh Groban’s signing of the national anthem.
Then, another season officially commenced, one that will be marked by constant remembrances of last year’s triumphant conclusion — and, the Dodgers hope, ends with another World Series parade, and opening day celebration in 2026.