Dodgers beat Blue Jays, become first back-to-back champs since 2000
For the first time since 2000, MLB has a repeat champ. The Dodgers go back-to-back and cement their place among baseball’s modern dynasties.
Sports Pulse
A shuffling of the Cincinnati Reds coaching staff has resulted in a return to the big-league coaching ranks for Willie Harris and an actual title for “Swiss army coach” Mike Napoli.
Along the way, Brad Mills, manager Terry Francona’s lifelong friend and baseball confidant has retired from baseball.
Mills, 68, spent most of the last 50 years in the game as a player, manager and coach. He returned last fall to join Francona’s staff after spending five seasons away from the game following a tragic death in the family.
Harris, the one-time Reds outfielder/second baseman, returned to the Reds organization in 2025 after four seasons at the Chicago Cubs‘ third-base coach. A holdover from manager David Ross’ staff in Chicago, Harris was not offered a multi-year extension like other Cubs coaches after the 2024 season.
He managed the Reds’ Class A Daytona farm club to the Florida State League championship series in 2025.
J.R. House, the Reds’ longtime third-base coach, left the staff after the 2025 season to serve as the third-base coach in Arizona, where he lives.
Napoli, the World Series veteran player who also was a coach on Ross’ staffs in Chicago, joined Francona’s staff in 2025 as an all-purpose coach who had big influences on Spencer Steer’s emergence as a Gold Glove-finalist first baseman, several hitters’ approaches and, some suggest, the team’s resilience in the face of what looked like season-killing losses down the stretch.
His new title: assistant bench coach (hey, it’s better than the Swiss-army thing).
Former big-league catcher Bill Haselman, who was a coach on Francona’s curse-busting Boston Red Sox staff (2004-06), joins the staff as the catching coach, filling the position-specific duties House handled.