The Los Angeles Dodgers are set to celebrate winning the World Series at two events tomorrow following last night’s win over the New York Yankees. It will be the team’s first championship celebration in 36 years.
Mayor Karen Bass will be kicking off the event at 11 a.m. at Gloria Molina Grand Park on Spring Street in front of City Hall where Dodgers players and staff will embark on a 45-minute parade through downtown L.A. atop double-decker buses.
Los Angeles, are you ready for a parade?! #WorldSeries pic.twitter.com/FZhhp1VB29
— Los Angeles Dodgers (@Dodgers) October 31, 2024
“I’m gonna go to the parade with my roommate,” Michael Macias, a sophomore studying political science, said. “I’m pretty psyched for that.”
The parade is set to end at 11:45 a.m. at 5th and Flower streets. From there, players and team members will be taken to Dodgers Stadium where the celebration is set to continue at 12:15 p.m. during a ticketed event. Doors for the event will open at 9 a.m., and fans will be able to purchase food, drinks and World Series merch. There will also be entertainment and live coverage of the parade on the stadium’s big screen. Officials have made it clear that fans will not be able to attend both the parade and the stadium event.
“I’m super excited about the parade,” said Darby Kilne, a junior studying public relations and advertising. “I honestly still have to figure out transportation. I haven’t looked into the Metro yet. That could be an option, or I’m also just trying to get a ride from someone that’s going.”
Both Bass and the Dodgers have encouraged fans to take public transportation due to limited parking and extensive street closures. Metro has provided a guide for getting to both the parade and the stadium celebration.
USC students can take the Metro E line from campus all the way to downtown, getting off at the 7th Street Metro Station stop near the end of the parade route, the Grand Ave. Arts/Bunker Hill stop near the middle of the route or the Historic Broadway stop near the start of the parade.
The celebration is set to take place two days after the Dodgers beat the Yankees 7-6 in Game 5 to win the World Series after being down 5-0 at the top of the fifth inning.
“The atmosphere was really as positive as it could have possibly been. And then there was that awful, awful fifth inning where the Dodgers scored five runs in one inning,” said Jack Noveck-Holmes, a senior who attended game 5 rooting for the Yankees. “A lot of errors and mistakes from the defense that led to that.”
But the Boys in Blue rallied to tie, and eventually win, the game with a clutch closing by the pitching bullpen.
“It was pretty silent for the last two innings, and that silence continued on when the Dodgers won,” Noveck-Holmes said. “The thing you could hear the most was the players on the field celebrating.”
Dodgers fans immediately took to the streets to celebrate, though some celebrations devolved into looting and vandalism, with a boarded up shoe store in downtown L.A. hit by thieves and a Metro Los Angeles bus set ablaze in Echo Park. The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) said several had been arrested, but further details were not immediately released. Some fans said the way last night’s celebrations unfolded have deterred them from attending Friday’s celebrations.
“I’m not interested in going to the parade,” said Sami Schilling, a junior studying aging and human development. “I feel like it’ll be really chaotic and crowded, and there was a fire due to the Dodgers winning last night in Echo Park, so personally, I’m not gonna go.”
The last time the Dodgers got to celebrate a World Series win with the city was back in 1988 when they beat the Oakland A’s. The team also won in 2020, but due to the Covid pandemic was unable to have any sort of public celebration.