What is the best rivalry in American sports? I'm at a crossroads as I've covered MLS derbies and boy are there some juicy ones rivalling the English Premier League. I've also covered NBA rivalries and although there is some ill feeling, most rivalries are based on the current success of the teams. My writing journey is now taking me to rivalries in the NHL, NFL and MLB.

While writing up my next piece on MLS derbies, I cannot see how there is a derby bigger than the Dodgers-Giants rivalry in all of American sports. The Seattle Sounders and Portland Timbers and the Battle of Cascadia wouldn't be out of place in European soccer. Fans absolutely hate each other. And Larry Bird and Magic Johnson only solidified why the Lakers and Celtics are forever at war. Both teams have won more than 45% of every NBA championship for goodness sake!

But the LA Dodgers and San Francisco Giants derby is like no other. I've found that many MLS derbies have a storied history behind them which leads to these great rivalries, but the story behind both the Dodgers and Giants is something else.

Source: Photo by Frederick Dennstedt

The rivalry began back in 1890 and most of the derbies I've covered in U.S. sports are no where near that old. The thing that makes this derby unreal is that both teams were actually based in New York originally! The Giants played out of Manhattan and the Dodgers, who were originally known as the Bridegrooms (yes you read that right), were based in Brooklyn.

So at this point the two teams where already crosstown rivals in New York but in 1957 the Dodgers moved to LA. The Giants then followed them to the West Coast, moving to San Francisco a year later. New York were upset that it was only the Yankees that remained in town but the league gave them the Mets. In another piece of the storied history, the Mets colours are made up of a combination of the Dodgers and Giants colours paying homage to the two teams that use to call New York home.

Source: Photo by Eric Garcetti

So what was an East Coast rivalry has remarkably transformed into a West Coast derby. Dodgers fans were traditionally seen as elitists from Manhattan and the Giants from the working class of Brooklyn. It's now a transformed into a battle of the chilled out Northern Californians vs. Southern Californian sophistication. Despite these heavyweights playing each other more than 2500 times the rivalry has been remarkably tight which makes this even more special.

Like I said, I still need to absorb the remaining MLB derbies on my list as well as explore NHL and NFL rivalries. With the history behind this one though, I can't see any other rivalry in U.S sport matching the Dodgers-Giants.

Source: Photo by SD Dirk

THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT!

All the way from the Land Down Under, I created Wolfgang Sport as I enjoy writing and watching British and American sports. Started in 2017, I started the blog as a way to connect my passion for sports in the US & UK.

• hive-101690
• sportstalk
• sports
• neoxian
• ocd
• baseball