World Series-winning Dodgers vow to keep dynasty going in 2026

Clayton Kershaw, who has officially retired from professional baseball, addressed the crowd gathered Monday at Dodger Stadium as he fought back tears. “I told Freddie I’m going to try not to cry today,” he said.

Kershaw thanked the fans and his teammates for the last 18 years of his time on the Dodger lineup.

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“You guys are the best in the world,” Kershaw said. “You’ve been the best team in the world for as long as I can remember.”

Kershaw said he’s a Dodger for life as the crowd cheered without any sign of stopping.

“Today I get to say that I’m a champion for life, and that’s never going away,” he said.

Kershaw’s wife, Ellen Kershaw, and his children joined the player onstage.

“I will remember this for the rest of my life,” he said.

Next year, Kershaw said, he planned to watch the team play just like the rest of the fanbase.

Second baseman Miguel Rojas — who hit the game-tying home run in Game 7 of the World Series — said he stayed ready for the moment he’d always been waiting for. And it paid off.

“Dodger fans, you deserve this,” Miguel Rojas said on Monday at Dodger Stadium.

After calling out his teammates’ successes, Rojas pointed out that it was pitcher Roki Sasaki’s birthday and got the stadium DJ to play “Bailalo Rocky” by Yoan Retro for Sasaki.

He tried to get Sasaki to dance. Sasaki instead fist bumped.

Next up, pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto took the mic.

“You know what? Losing isn’t an option. ... We did it together. I love the Dodgers! I love Los Angeles,” he said.

Mookie Betts thanked the crowd and noted the team’s winning record.

Pointing to the crowd, Freedie Freeman echoed Betts, saying, “Over 4 million of you came to watch us play this year, and we delivered the job.”

“Job in 2024, done. Job in 2025, done. Job in 2026? Starts now,” Freeman said.

The crowd roared, “Freddie! Freddie!”

Carlos Soto, a San Bernardino resident, came to the parade with his wife, Carmen, and the couple brought their three daughters, ages 11, 4 and 1.

A longtime Dodgers fan, he was 5 when the team won the 1988 World Series, and his memories of it are hazy. He hopes his kids will always cherish this championship.

“I wanted them to have memories of when the Dodgers won and be able to look back on these moments and cherish them in the future,” Soto said.

He said the parade was a much-needed respite during a year filled with wildfires and political strife.

“I definitely feel the city needs a lift,” Soto said. “It is something that brings the community together across nationalities and political lines and unites everybody — it’s something that’s very needed.”

Soto, whose two younger daughters relaxed in strollers, wore a Dodgers jersey featuring Mexico’s flag — it was recently given away at Dodger Stadium to celebrate Mexican Heritage Night. Soto, who is of Mexican descent, said there wasn’t a special reason he donned the jersey on Monday. Instead, it was purely a practical decision.

“I was thinking of wearing a white jersey, but my kids were eating Cheetos, and I was like, ‘No, maybe not,’” he said with a laugh.

At Dodger Stadium, all the seats seemed to be filled as the players high-fived and hugged one another.

Joseph Davis, television sportscaster who serves as the lead play-by-play for the Los Angeles Dodgers, took the stage, saying, “I told you guys last year to start the party.”

After calling out players Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Miguel Rojas and Will Smith for their dynamic game play, Davis pointed to two tables that held only one Commissioner’s Trophy.

Dodgers coach Dave Roberts called in Ice Cube to bring in the team’s recent 2025 Commissioner’s Trophy.

The Dodgers have officially arrived at the stadium.

Welcomed by throngs of cheering fans waving signs, banners and draped in Dodgers blue, the caravan of double decker buses carrying the back-to-back World Series champions drove into the parking lot a few minutes after 12 p.m.

A line of cheering crowds lined the way for them to walk onto centerfield just after 12:15 p.m.

Before the floats even began to pass near Figueroa and 7th streets in downtown Los Angeles, fans erupted into a collective cheer that seemed to shake the ground, eagerly awaiting the arrival of the World Series champions.

A blizzard of confetti and smoke rained down as the group of men smiled and waved at their adoring onlookers.

Some fans cried,. “We ruined baseball!” as the team passed.

Longtime fan Dylan Trier said the phrase poked fun at the franchise’s exorbitant spending habits, but that that spending also showed management’s commitment to winning every year of competition.

Monday’s procession wasn’t Josh Langer’s first rodeo. Perched in a tree, he said he’d been to four championship parades for L.A. sports teams — two for the Dodgers, one for the Lakers and one for the Rams.

“A little climbing goes a long way,” he said while sitting on a branch near the corner of 1st Street and Grand Avenue in downtown Los Angeles. “Trees are the easiest, but I’ve also scaled a light post and balcony railing.”

Langer saw the buses before the rest of the low-lying crowd. “Here it comes!” he yelled, stoking the excitement level of the crowd.

Dodger fans chant as they catch their first glimpse of their home team and back-to-back World Series champions.

(Daniel Miller )

From one of the team buses, Tyler Glasnow pointed to the sky, Blake Snell pointed at the fans, and an armada of buzzing aerial drones dodged blasts from confetti cannons as the vehicles lumbered up Temple Street.

A few fans broke out in a “Freddie!” chant, a frequent refrain at Dodger Stadium, when they spotted Freeman, the Dodgers’ star first baseman.

The vibes at the Dodgers parade were wholly positive: The only act of disobedience visible from one vantage point was a handful of people climbing on top of a KTLA news van. They were only trying to get a better view of the parade and soon dispersed.

Wearing knee-high Dodgers socks and standing at the intersection of Hope and 7th streets in downtown L.A., Mark Krojansky waxed poetic over the fact that his children, ages 11 and 9, had witnessed three Dodgers championships in their young lives.

For Krojansky, the 30-year wait between the 1988 and 2020 World Series was worth it.

“This could be the only time for many, many years, you never know,” Krojansky said. “We deserve it.”

His children would be missing school for this and any Dodgers parade.

They were stricken with a condition he called “Dodger flu.”

Thousands of fans from across the region lined city blocks for the Dodgers parade Monday morning.

Jane Lee made sure she was among them, securing a spot on Temple Street in the heart of downtown L.A.

She had regretted not going to last year‘s Dodgers parade, so when the team recorded the final out in Game 7, the Monterey Park resident knew she couldn’t miss it this year.

The lifelong Dodgers fan said that before the final game of the World Series, Shohei Ohtani had been her favorite Dodger.

Now?

It was pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto, the World Series most valuable player, who became an unexpected hero in the deciding game, taking the mound and recording the final eight outs.

But she still had love for his teammates.

“I don’t just want to see Yamamoto — I want to see everybody,” Lee said.

She held a sign that called Yamamoto the “best pitcher” and included writing in Japanese.

Jane Lee holds a sign celebrating Dodgers pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto.

(Daniel Miller/Los Angeles Times)

What did it say?

“Arigato!” she shouted.

Before long, others were joining in, and it became a chant, the gleeful thank-yous tumbling out in a raucous chorus.

The Dodgers returned as heroes Sunday night when their plane arrived at Los Angeles International Airport after winning the World Series against the Toronto Blue Jays.

Fire trucks sprayed water on the plane as it taxied along the runway after landing.

Then, one by one, the team members exited down a staircase.

The Dodgers are the 2025 World Series champions.

With their 5-4 win in 11 innings over the Toronto Blue Jays in Game 7 on Saturday, the Dodgers became the first back-to-back World Series champions in 25 years.

The Los Angeles Dodgers’ thrilling 11-inning Saturday win over the Toronto Blue Jays was the most watched World Series game since 2017, according to Nielsen data.

The Fox telecast of the Game 7 contest giving the Dodgers their second consecutive world championship attracted an average of 25. 5 million viewers on Fox.

For those braving the Dodgers Parade route Monday, the weather is expected to cooperate.

Downtown L.A. is forecast to have clouds and fog through the early afternoon, with highs rising from the 60s to the low 70s. Some sunshine could peek through.

Some clearing will occur in the afternoon.

With the Dodgers parade comes traffic closures across downtown Monday.

Some key ones via City News Service:

• Road closures would generally occur south from Chinatown and Cesar Chavez Avenue, west of Spring Street, east of the Harbor (110) Freeway and north of Eighth Street.

• Off-ramps to Sixth Street will be closed from the northbound and southbound 110 Freeway, as well as the Fifth Street on-ramps for the northbound and southbound 110 Freeway.

• DASH and Commuter Express service will be impacted, and riders were encouraged to check online for changes.

LA Metro officials said many bus lines in downtown LA will be detoured due to the festivities starting as early as 3:30 a.m.

Metro will direct many of its bus lines serving downtown to the following four Metro Rail stations, where riders can transfer to trains and continue their trips into downtown:

• Union Station (A, B and D Lines) is the main entry point into DTLA from the north or east.

• Westlake/MacArthur Park (B and D Lines) for those coming into DTLA from the west.

• Little Tokyo/Arts District (A and E Lines) for those coming into DTLA from the east.

• Pico Station (A and E Lines) for those coming into DTLA from the west or south.

Will Smith homered in the 11th inning after Miguel Rojas connected for a tying drive in the ninth, and the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 in Game 7 to become the first team in a quarter century to win consecutive World Series titles.

Los Angeles overcame 3-0 and 4-2 deficits and escaped a bases-loaded jam in the ninth to become the first repeat champion since the 1998-2000 New York Yankees, and the first from the National League since the 1975 and ’76 Cincinnati Reds.

Smith hit a 2-0 slider off Shane Bieber into the Blue Jays’ bullpen, giving the Dodgers their first lead of the night.

The wait for the first Dodgers parade of the century: 36 years.

The wait for the second: One year and two days.

On Monday, in celebration of the Dodgers becoming baseball’s first back-to-back champion in 25 years, Los Angeles will throw another party for the Dodgers.