The man and story behind Mookie Betts' lucky necklace
TORONTO - It was less than 10 seconds, but it offered the kind of image that Red Sox fans are all too accustomed to. Mookie Betts celebrating a world championship.
There was running in from the outfield in 2018, 2020, and last season, the hop, skip, and a jump followed by a full sprint to the pitcher's mound. This time, the moment in time began with Alejandro Kirk's grounder up the middle.
There was Betts fielding the grounder. There was Betts taking three steps. There was Betts touching second base. There was Betts throwing to first base. Then came a hop, a couple of strides, another jump, and then the synchronized throwing of both his hat and glove into the air.
Mookie Betts and the Los Angeles had on another world championship.
At this point, it is what it is.
Mookie has long moved on from Boston, securely still identifying that the 2018 championship season was the most satisfying of his career. And now he has settled in as a key piece of this championship puzzle, albeit at a position (shortstop) and production level (.424 OPS in the World Series) that certainly weren't Plan A coming into the 2025 season.
But it's that image, the one that punctuated one of the most epic World Series games of all-time, that just supplied Red Sox fans with enough of late-night needling that some more jealousy bubbled up.
Within such moments, it's a time-honored tradition for every team that didn't get a chance to bathe in tinsel and champagne to try and figure out exactly why this wasn't them. The Blue Jays? Their analysis will be far more painful (sitting two outs away from a championship will do that) and less ambiguous than the others. Toronto had the right formula. That ultimately wasn't the problem. A bad pitch to Miguel Rojas was.
But for teams like the Red Sox, there has to be some more proof that they are ready to run the race being led by the Dodgers, and even the Blue Jays.
Stars. Find them. Don't let them go.
Ultimately, they are the engine that allow to reach the kind of heights these two teams managed.
Starting pitchers. Get more than you need, and make sure they are at the level that can be relied upon in the postseason. Get this: Starting pitchers during this postseason threw 77 1/3 innings, compared to 42 2/3 innings last year. These were seven games completely driven by starters, even when those starting pitchers were called upon to pitch out of the bullpen.
And find the boat in which all the oars are going to row in unison. Sure, the Dodgers have the game's highest payroll, and the Blue Jays sit at No. 5. But the culture of both teams was undeniably put on display, whether it was stars such as Betts and Vlad Guerrero Jr. ending up at positions they weren't raised at, or something along the lines of what Yamamoto did.
And in case you don't know what Yamamoto did ... He was the guy who closed out the World Series with a 36-pitch, 2 2/3-inning performance after throwing 96 pitches THE DAY BEFORE.
The reality is that even with these bullet points for success, there is no fool-proof blueprint. Even in victory, the Dodgers proved that.
But that doesn't mean a team like the Red Sox shouldn't stare at another Dodgers celebration and yearn for those sort of nice things. That is, after all the goal. Not having the lead statistically in a bushel of categories. Not to be praised for the evolution of pitching or hitting programs. Not having the ability to talk about investments in all kinds of fancy things. And not be able to brag about robust farm systems.
It is solely about being able to call yourself a world champion. That has to be the goal, hard stop. The Blue Jays, to their credit, pushed their chips to the middle of the table with that North Star in mind and fell just short. The Dodgers? Same thing, except they were the ones who got the payoff.
So, if there is one undeniable takeaway for the Red Sox from what happened Saturday night at Rogers Centre it is those 10 seconds of watching Mookie Betts.
Finding that moment and that kind of player. That's what it's all about.