Christmas came early for fans of the Los Angeles Dodgers, who enjoyed their second consecutive World Series title in an epic seven-game battle against the Toronto Blue Jays.
The win was a culmination of an up-and-down season that saw the Dodgers struggle to close out games before turning another corner in the postseason, dominating their way through the National League before meeting their match in the Blue Jays.
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For outfielder Alex Call, the championship run was a dream come true. Call, who finished his fourth season in Major League Baseball this year, was drafted by Chicago White Sox in the third round of the 2016 MLB June Amateur Draft, and didn’t make his MLB debut until 2022. Call has been traded in two of his four seasons of professional baseball, including in 2025, when the Dodgers acquired him at the deadline from the Washington Nationals.
Call played 38 games for the Dodgers, showing his ability to get on base with a .247 batting percentage and a 0.52 walk-to-strikeout ratio. Call had just seven at-bats in the postseason, recording one hit and one walk. Regardless, Call finished the 2025 season as a World Series champion and is under team control and headed to arbitration for the 2026 season.
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“Going through L.A. and having everybody wave at you and just be super excited about what our team did, really just a surreal time and really fun to soak it all in,” Call told Sports Spectrum analyst and former NFL running back Matt Forte. “Why not? It’s kind of a once-in-a-lifetime thing. Hopefully we can run it back again, but it could be once in a lifetime, so just soak it up.”
Call’s path to earning his first ring wasn’t an easy one, going from Ball State University to six straight seasons of Minor League baseball — not including the cancelled 2020 Minor League season. Call told Forte that the long and windy road to the World Series made the celebration even sweeter.
“Being able to kind of take a parade lap going through L.A. We had the parade, then the next day we go to the Lakers game and next day after that go to the Kings game. Just seeing all the fans super excited about what we were able to accomplish, and they get to be a part of it, just kind of soaking it in. It’s really a surreal moment, when you kind of come full circle and look back to where you started. River Falls, Wisconsin, to Ball State, grinding through the Minor Leagues, and all of a sudden find your way to the Dodgers, on a World Series championship team.”
Call and the Dodgers will officially begin their quest for a third-straight title on March 26 when they host the Arizona Diamondbacks.
Photo Credit: Ron Chenoy-Imagn Images