The Los Angeles Dodgers are less than six months removed from winning the World Series, which included a Game 5 come-from-behind victory over the New York Yankees thanks a disastrous defensive inning in the Bronx – no one will ever forget those Yankees errors and a missed out. It's still fresh on both sides of the equation as they look to start the 2025 season on the right foot.
The Dodgers have thrown daggers at the Yankees since then, insisting they knew New York wasn't a team built on the fundamentals. One former Yankee who didn't take kindly to the Dodgers victory lap was Jon Berti.
“I don’t know if I’ve ever heard a World Series-winning team talk as badly as they did about the World Series-losing team,” Berti said in early February. “It felt like we were being disrespected to the point of we didn’t even belong in the World Series.”
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Jon Berti's untimely error is another loss for the Yankees
Berti may be right, but he doesn't necessarily provide much weight to his own argument given he was left off the World Series roster to begin with. He tried to provide some context in that same interview in favor of his former team. It didn't work.
“We won a lot of games last year. We won our division,” Berti continued. “We went and took care of Kansas City and took care of Cleveland. So we deserved to be there, unfortunately, we didn’t perform at our best.”
Well, Berti had a chance at revenge – if you can call it that – against the Dodgers in the Tokyo Series. Berti is now a member of the Chicago Cubs and was playing second base on Tuesday. Unfortunately, Berti's Cubs debut didn't go according to plan.
Jon Berti throws the ball away and the Dodgers take the lead! pic.twitter.com/5oBKIjwtEN
— Talkin’ Baseball (@TalkinBaseball_) March 18, 2025
The Cubs were able to get the out at second base, but Berti rushed his throw to first and thus allowed the Dodgers to take the lead. Again, while Berti wasn't on the Yankees World Series roster, there's something poetic about his throwing error providing Los Angeles with the eventual winning run to open the following season, is there not?
Berti has played second base in his career before, though he spent a lot of time last season as the Yankees first baseman, especially once Anthony Rizzo went down. Given the Tokyo Series opener, Craig Counsell may want to rethink his strategy at first base moving forward.