Dodgers' World Series win comes with Nashville ties, including star Mookie Betts | Estes

Nashville doesn’t have a Major League Baseball team yet, but it does have a star player.

Overton High School’s Mookie Betts didn’t win MVP honors after his Los Angeles Dodgers ended the franchise’s 32-year World Series title drought, but he could have.

In Tuesday’s Game 6 against Tampa Bay, Betts had two of the Dodgers’ five hits and two of their three runs, including the insurance home run he belted in the eighth inning to push the lead to 3-1, which is where the final game of a strange and shortened MLB season finished.

Nearing his second career World Series win, the 28-year-old Betts punctuated that home run by hollering in celebration as he rounded the bases.

“It felt amazing,” Betts told Fox Sports’ Tom Verducci after the game.

Strange to think that for a city with NFL, NHL and MLS franchises, Nashville's most accomplished, most famous active sports celebrity plays baseball. But it's true. This series victory underscored Betts' status as one of the top players in the game, if not the best.

Betts became the first MLB player ever to win two different World Series with different clubs in a three-year span while also winning an MVP award, according to MassLive.com. 

In 2018, he also hit a home run in the clinching game for the Boston Red Sox. Reggie Jackson, according to ESPN, is the only other baseball player to have done that with multiple teams.

Power, contact, speed, arm strength, fielding – Betts can do it all. The "five-tool player" label is overused in baseball, but Betts lives up to it. 

"The best baseball player in the world!" tweeted basketball great Earvin "Magic" Johnson about Betts on Tuesday night.

Only two other players in World Series history did what Betts accomplished against the Rays: Stealing four bases and hitting multiple home runs. He did it with his parents in attendance in Texas, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Nashville's pride in Betts is genuine, but that's not just a result of his abundant baseball ability and success.

It's because he is still such a presence in Nashville. Betts – whose story about growing up as a ballplayer (and stellar bowler) in Nashville is well known – never abandoned or big-timed his home city, even when he could have.

Nashville can say it knew Betts when.

And, really, it still knows him now.

With Betts, it's not just a surface connection. It's a deep one that has persisted after he grew into a superstar, largely because of his own efforts.

In May, Betts showed up at the Bordeaux Kroger and surprised shoppers with free groceries. In June, he posted on Instagram while handing out facemasks and hand sanitizers in Nashville.

Last year, Betts began construction of a new home in Franklin. This past offseason, he announced a pick for Nashville SC during its Major League Soccer expansion draft, joining the Titans’ Derrick Henry as the city’s top athletes invited to such an occasion.

This World Series belongs to Los Angeles, of course, but perhaps a small part of it is Nashville’s too.

It wasn’t just because of Betts. Former Belmont University player Matt Beaty – a native of Dresden in Tennessee’s northwestern corner – is on the Dodgers. He became the Bruins' first alum to win a World Series.

Walker Buehler was a star pitcher for Vanderbilt and is the same now for the Dodgers. He pitched six innings and struck out 10 while allowing a run to win Game 3.

Don’t forget, too, that former Vanderbilt star pitcher David Price is a member of the Dodgers who opted out of playing in 2020 because of COVID-19 concerns. A postseason column by USA TODAY’s Bob Nightengale quoted Price as saying he was “definitely missing it, but I’m at peace with my decision.”

Price stayed involved. Betts told Nightengale that he and Price continued to talk three or four times a week and that Price texted him and “pretty much the whole team" after games.

“Everyone in a Dodger uniform wishes he was here,” Betts said of Price.

While Betts is signed with the Dodgers through 2032, it’s fun to speculate about what could happen should his home city happen to secure an MLB team between now and then. A prominent member of the Nashville group working to make that happen is Dave Dombrowski, who happened to be the president of baseball operations in 2018 for the Red Sox, a team that featured Betts as batting champion and American League MVP.

Maybe, just maybe, they’d find a way to make Betts part of a team in Nashville one day.

Until then at least, he’ll keep starring in Dodger blue, bright enough to be a shining example for folks back home.

Reach Gentry Estes at gestes@tennessean.com and on Twitter @Gentry_Estes.