Last time Dodgers won World Series, ‘Roseanne’ just premiered, UB40 was atop charts
The last time the Los Angeles Dodgers won the World Series we were in the middle of a presidential election and only eight of the team’s current players had been born.
The Dodgers beat the Tampa Bay Devil Rays 3-1 in Game 6 Tuesday at Globe Life Field in Arlington to win the franchise’s seventh World Series, including one when the team still played in Brooklyn.
It was Oct. 20, 1988 when ace Orel Hershiser won the World Series MVP after the Dodgers beat the Oakland Athletics 4 games to 1 to win the championship.
Of the eight current players, four were born just a few months before the 1988 title, including Pedro Baez (March 11, 1988), Clayton Kershaw (March 19, 1988), Joe Kelly (June 6, 1988), and Blake Treinen (June 30, 1988).
So what was different 32 years ago? Fort Worth and Arlington were about half the size they are now. Fort Worth’s population was about 400,000 in 1988. There are more than 932,000 residents now. Arlington had about 213,000 residents. It’s about 400,000 now.
The internet, as we now know it, didn’t exist and a state-of-the-art Tandy 1000 personal computer came with a 16-color monitor and 640 kilobytes of memory. The iPhone 11 has 4 gigabytes of memory.
“The Accused” starring Jodie Foster and “Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers” were atop the box office.
UB40’s cover of Neil Diamond’s “Red Red Wine” and Phil Collins’ “ Groovy Kind of Love” were atop the Billboard pop charts. Dwight Yoakam and Buck Owens’ version of “Streets of Bakersfield” and Tanya Tucker’s “Strong Enough To Bend” were atop the Billboard country charts.
Tom Clancy’s “The Cardinal of the Kremlin” was the No. 1 fiction book and ABC’s new sitcom “Roseanne” premiered two days before the Dodgers clinched. “The Cosby Show” was the top-rated television show, although the Dodgers’ Game 5 clincher was the top-rated program that week.
This story was originally published October 27, 2020 at 10:45 PM.
