Believe it or not, tonight will be the very first meeting between the Dodgers and Giants in the postseason. They have been rivals for over 120 years, on two coasts, and have given us epic games with infamous dust-ups, but it’s never been quite like this – with postseason glory on the line.
And yet, when the Dodgers and Giants were just making the move from New York back in ’50s, some wondered if the rivalry would be the same in California. Here’s what Roger Kahn had to say in the January, 1958 issue of SPORT: “The pennant race of 1951 [between the Dodgers and Giants, which ended in a best-of-3 play-in series, technically still part of the regular season] was a struggle built upon almost 60 years of baseball feuds and, no matter what happens next season, it is going to take a little while for the rivalry’s new roots to look like the old. But while there are Giants to play Dodgers, and partisan fans to care about what happens, there will be fireworks.”