How Dodgers spent the first few hours after

TORONTO — What do you bear in mind most about the epic, riveting, thrill-a-minute Game 7?

The home run? Which one?

That loopy play at the plate? The rubber-armed starter-turned-closer? The last out?

So many moments, so many tales that might be told and retold among this era of Dodgers followers and handed down to the next.

As the Dodgers return to Toronto on Monday, for the first time since conquering the Blue Jays to seize the World Series championship, I wished to look back with a peek at the official World Series documentary.

Not so fast. Major League Baseball did commission a documentary, as it always does, but the movie was not prepared for release by the time spring training began. The sequence was so dramatic that the league is trying into choices for a high-profile rollout, in all probability around midseason.

The Dodgers did their half, with a artistic bobblehead sequence of Game 7 moments: Max Muncy’s home run in the eighth inning, Miguel Rojas’ tying home run in the ninth inning, Will Smith’s game-winning home run in the eleventh inning, Mookie Betts turning the game-ending double play, and a Yoshinobu Yamamoto “last out” image.

Collect all 5, though, and you still don’t get the behind-the-scenes access that a documentary does. So why not ask the Dodgers themselves to take you behind the scenes in those wild hours between their departure from Rogers Centre as champions and their arrival in Los Angeles the following day?

Actually, by the time the Dodgers left the stadium, it was already the following day. Game 7 didn’t end until 17 minutes past midnight. The Dodgers gathered on the discipline to acquire their championship trophy, retreated to the clubhouse to douse themselves in champagne and beer, returned to the discipline to share the second with their households, then went back inside to bathe and costume.

“By the time you get done celebrating, there is nowhere that is still open,” Muncy said. “So we had a little spot downstairs at the hotel. We had a little party down there.”

It was past 2 a.m. by the time most of the gamers and their households joined the social gathering in a resort ballroom to share food, drink, and pleasure.

“It was really cool to embrace all the families, see all the excitement,” Rojas said.

“It was unbelievable that you got to bring the trophy back to the hotel. That’s what I remember: taking those moments and enjoying them with the people that I really care about.”

Freddie Freeman said he was one of the first to go away the social gathering. He and his household stayed about an hour and a half, and by then his youngsters had been so drained that it was time for mattress.

Rojas said he frolicked at the social gathering until around 5 a.m. He didn’t sleep that night time.

Was there any sleep to be had for Muncy that night time?

“At some point, there was,” he said. “I don’t remember it.”

The Dodgers pushed back their flights to midday, supervisor Dave Roberts said. The Dodgers journey in two teams: one for households, coaches, and crew staffers; the other for the gamers.

“I don’t know what they were doing,” Roberts said. “I was sleeping.”

They had been singing.

“My favorite part was the bus ride going to the plane,” Freeman said. “Music blaring. Everyone is singing on the bus.

“Miguel is on the mic. Every song he played, he seemed to know the words, or he made up words.”

For Rojas to get up and sing on the crew bus, effectively, nothing new there. What was new that morning was one tune in his repertoire.

“There’s this song they were playing at the stadium in the seventh inning — I think it goes, ‘Oh yay, Blue Jays,’ something like that,” Rojas said. (It’s called “OK, Blue Jays.”)

“And I was just singing the song and getting the guys going. I didn’t plan it. I was just happy and letting myself go, as I always do on the mic. And the guys enjoy it. I do my part on the bus every time, and it’s like a performance. Every time I go up there, I feel like I’m Kevin Hart.”

And then …

“At some point, we were on a plane,” Muncy said. “I don’t remember the timing of any of that. I just know that it was all a lot of fun. Traveling isn’t always something that is fun, but in that scenario, it was something that everyone really enjoyed.

“You’re passing the trophy around. You’re getting pictures taken. You’re playing ‘We Are the Champions’ on repeat for hours, not getting tired of it at all. It’s a really good time.”

The planes landed. The gamers reunited with their households. It was time to go home.

But reflection on those few hours of celebration — that wild scramble to get pleasure from the second, yet hurry to get everybody prepared to go home — left the Dodgers envisioning one of the few issues this up to date dynasty has yet to accomplish.

“I would love to win at home,” Muncy said. “We haven’t done that yet. It would be ideal to do that.”