What we learned when the Dodgers got swept

So, the Los Angeles Dodgers will not three-peat. Swept by the Milwaukee Brewers in the National League Championship Series, the Dodgers’ season has ended early for the first time since 2023. They made themselves main characters of the sport by winning rings – and villains by spending billions. Or maybe it was the other way around. Either way, their success and their largess dominated the story of baseball this summer and, with a labor battle looming, it will again this winter. Somebody else – the Brewers or Tampa Bay Rays or Cleveland Guardians – will win the World Series with a payroll that’s a fraction of LA’s. Cleveland hasn’t won in 78 years. Milwaukee and Tampa Bay have never won a ring. Viscerally – and narratively, judging by the discourse – this is shocking. It is shocking because over a two-year span the Dodgers have started to seem inevitable.