So, baseball fans of the world, did you watch the 2025 Major League Baseball Postseason until the final out(s) last night/this morning? Did you watch Mookie Betts of the Los Angeles Dodgers, knowing the outs needed and the runners running to their bases, step on second and then whirl a strike to first base for a double play to end the game? Did you watch as the two LAD outfielders nearly collided and perhaps missed a fly ball in the bottom of the 10th that would have sealed a win for the Toronto Blue Jays? Did you pace your living room floor back and forth as the Boston Red Sox faced the New York Yankees in the Opening Round? Did you throw a fit when the Tigers beat the Guardians, or when the Cubs beat the Padres? Or, did you simply watch your team play until they lost in whichever round it was and then change the channel to College Football? Raise your hand if you did that, I won’t judge.

It is said that we as human beings have five senses that allow us to interact with the world and its happenings – sight, smell, touch, hearing, and taste. So, let’s just review the facts of the 2025 MLB Postseason before I unpack the five senses I experienced over the past several weeks. The Los Angeles Dodgers, a 3 seed coming into the Postseason, won their second consecutive World Series trophy. The Toronto Blue Jays, a 1 seed, took the LAD to the brink of defeat but ultimately fell short of winning their first WS title in nearly 3 decades. My WS prediction fell horribly short of expectations (Red Sox over Cubs) as did many other fans’ hometown predictions (I’m assuming) in San Diego, Detroit, Milwaukee, and Seattle. Mega stars Aaron Judge (NYY) and Bryce Harper (PHI) failed again to win a WS trophy. How did your team do? How did your favorite player do? How are you feeling today – are you celebrating or lamenting? Real baseball fans don’t work 9-5. They work 24/7/365.

Okay, let’s unpack the five senses (sight, hearing, touch, taste, smell) of the 2025 MLB Postseason as it pertains to baseball. Sure, the game of baseball certainly affects human beings five senses, for example:

• Sight – you watch as a batted baseball spins and travels high and far into the night sky and into your baseball glove in the left field stands
• Hearing – you hear the roar of the crowd the moment a baseball is hit, then spins and travels high and far into the night sky signifying a game tying home run
• Touch – thuummmp, the feel of a batted baseball landing in your glove after you watched it travel high and far off the bat some 390 feet away
• Taste – the seemingly everlasting flavor of your Hubba Bubba chewing gum as you gnash and gnash waiting for a baseball spinning and traveling towards you in the left field stands
• Smell – you sniff your wet right shoulder and realize someone else who was trying to catch the home run ball you caught has spilled their entire beer on you in a clumsy attempt at catching the aforementioned baseball. But you caught the ball and you can always remove your sweatshirt.

Let us take a small step outside of the obvious definitions of the five senses and unpack my five senses for the 2025 MLB Postseason:

• Sight – Is the game on the field, in terms of watching a Postseason game on TV, better than it was 5 years ago, 10 years ago, 20 years ago? No, there are too many reporters, too many pre-game bla bla blas, too many graphics, and too much fluff. Please, side line reporters – stop interviewing managers during the games. As for the play on the field, the athletes on the mound, at the plate, in the field continue to get better and better each season. The arm strength, the spin rates, the exit velocities, the diving plays – wow, the game is super exciting to watch.
• Hearing – I am a huge fan of listening to a local MLB broadcast featuring local baseball announcers. Whether on TV or radio, local broadcasters have unlimited knowledge of their team, their players, their city, and their organization’s place in sports. They travel with the team all year long and get to know all the cool “fills” that make their broadcasts so unique and fun to watch/listen to. I am not a huge fan of national TV announcers calling World Series or any Postseason games. Their fake enthusiasm and contrived home run calls are about as flatlined as you can get. Fans need the enthusiastic calls of their local broadcaster. Who would you rather have calling a Red Sox game? Jerry Remy (RIP) or John Smoltz, come on??? MLB some way or some how has to provide a package where a local fan can sign up for a local TV broadcast of a Postseason game. I know there are radio options throughout the Postseason, I know because I listened to Game 3 of the Sox vs. Yankees game on WEEI Radio. Find a way to fold in the local TV or cable broadcast team for the entire Postseason run of a team.
• Touch – ticket prices for Postseason games are completely out of touch with reality. In my opinion, real baseball fans are not going to World Series games for one main reason – price. The price of tickets puts the average fan, the bleacher creature, the $5 nosebleed seeker sh$t out of luck. So, who is actually going to the games? In Los Angeles, the cameras caught millionaires and famous actors and other celebrities with Dodger gear on. But could any one of them tell you who Miguel Rojas was/is? Likely not. With ticket prices this high, I wonder how many actual baseball fans are in the stands. Baseball, like all sports and entertainment, is a business. Business 101, supply and demand drive the price of an item. In this case, it drives the price of a ticket of out touch with what most baseball fans can afford.
• Taste – I have a bad taste in my mouth when I see teams like the Los Angeles Dodgers win year after year. I wasn’t rooting for the Jays nor against the Dodgers to be honest. I just hoped that another National League team would get in, someone besides the LAD. Different teams, different outcomes, unexpected underdogs in sports make it interesting. With the LAD winning this year, more and more potential free agents and international players will now seek an opportunity to play there. Veteran players especially those without a WS ring will be even more willing to go there. Do the LAD need players, I mean are they inadequate at any position or in the rotation? Sure, they have aging players and suspect arms in the rotation and bullpen. And have they cracked the code of the salary riddle by simply deferring monies to top free agents and players, so they have more money in the now to offer players? Heck no!!! Every team can defer money and salaries, by the way, this is not a new concept. Ever hear of Bobby Bonilla, look him up, he is the poster child for deferred money. Imagine you are the Reds or the Pirates or the Marlins fanbase and are now counting the seasons down to when your star will leave for the money grab known as the Los Angeles Dodgers. I can name two HUGE stars that are absolutely going to go there when their time comes.
• Smell – When the final out is recorded in this and any MLB season, it stinks. The 2025 MLB season, which started up in March and finished up in November is now officially over. My Boston Red Sox lost in the first round to the NYY, that also stinks. I am happy for one of my favorite players, Mookie Betts, who got to smell the roses yet again – that’s 4 WS titles for him now. And the aforementioned NYY got royally whooped by the Jays in the ALDS round, so that definitely did not stink. What else stinks for me, the game is becoming more and more robotic with each passing season and rule being introduced. How much will the ABS system of replaying balls and strikes stink next year? Will it stink to be an umpire who has to reverse a bunch of missed balls and strikes in front of a packed Fenway Park or Yankee Stadium? Yep. If you disagree, go on YouTube and search for an MLB game from the 1980s – trust me the game didn’t stink back then.

So, now that the Series is over, many of us will turn our attention to other things like the holidays, family gatherings, raking leaves, shoveling snow, breaking down the cardboard from delivery boxes, New Years resolutions, and other sporting events. Roughly 5 months from today, the 2026 Major League Baseball season will start and another round of senses will surely emerge to captivate myself and all the other baseball fans of the world. For me, I will continue to search out baseball experiences around the globe, in the pages of baseball books, and in the stands of (most likely) empty baseball stadiums, fields, and ballparks. Because the sight of a baseball field, the sound of a baseball hitting a bat, the feel of a baseball in my hand, the combination of hot dog, mustard, bun, and sauerkraut in my mouth, and the smell of a good Budweiser spilled on my shoulder is why I love the game of baseball.

Congratulations to the Los Angeles Dodgers, the 2025 Major League Baseball World Series Champions. Let’s go Sox in 2026!