The Los Angeles Dodgers and Boston Red Sox have a lot of connections between them as far as former personnel, but the two teams are meeting in the World Series for only the second time and first since 1916.
One player who played for both teams is veteran first baseman Adrian Gonzalez, who was packaged by the Red Sox and sent to the Dodgers along with Carl Crawford, Josh Beckett and Nick Punto in the August 2012 blockbuster trade.
Gonzalez went on to have five-plus great seasons with the Dodgers, making the playoffs in every year except the season he was traded to them. He also won a Gold Glove Award, Silver Slugger Award and was named an All-Star during his tenure in Los Angeles.
The Dodgers traded Gonzalez to the Atlanta Braves this past offseason in what was a salary-motivated deal that brought Matt Kemp back to the organization.
Gonzalez not only doesn’t hold any ill-will towards the Dodgers, he is rooting for them in the World Series despite also having played for the Red Sox, via Dylan Hernandez of the L.A. Times:
“You always want to cheer for your friends,” he said. “And I live in L.A. I definitely feel like more a part of that team than I do the Red Sox at this point. So going into the World Series here, I will definitely cheer for the Dodgers.
“I don’t want that to be heard the wrong way. I still love the Red Sox and the Red Sox organization, but I spent five years [in Los Angeles] and have so many friends on the Dodgers.”
It was no secret that Gonzalez didn’t quite fit well in the city of Boston, which wasn’t an issue he encountered after the trade. He represented a beacon of hope for the franchise in their efforts to emerge from the final downtrodden years under former owner Frank McCourt, and was immediately accepted and appreciated.
There remained a possibility Gonzalez was going to re-sign with the Dodgers after the Braves waived him, but the New York Mets presented him with a Major League opportunity. Though, that came to an end after just 54 games.
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